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Avast's virus lab relies on robust community

Seemingly random names are embossed on the interior glass walls of the Avast offices and conference rooms in its Prague headquarters, and the June morning light illuminates them from behind. Written in black, these names and the orange-colored names of cities below them are, in fact, the forum nicknames of the people who use Avast and the cities they originate from. It appears there are Avast users on every continent, and that, said the company's CEO Vincent Steckler, is by design.

"Two-thirds of new users come from personal recommendations," he said. "Trying to get 35 million … Read more

How AVG keeps your computer safe

PRAGUE--The city of Brno in the Czech Republic is a place people go to learn. Situated some 130 miles southeast of Prague, its 11 universities host approximately 80,000 students, many of whom are computer engineers. So it's no surprise that while AVG's corporate offices are headquartered back in Prague, Brno hosts the lifeblood of the company: the virus lab.

Although consumer computer security has grown tremendously in the past five years--with nearly all the major security suite makers including some form of community-based protection, URL verification, or phishing prevention to accompany more traditional tools like firewalls and … Read more

Are video games art? 2010 edition

While the role of the professional critic in the realm of books, film, music, or art is well-established, for interactive entertainment the lines are less clear. As a (relatively) young medium, questions about how to actually write about video games are still being hashed out, by consumers, fans, bloggers, established media critics, and others.

The default to date has been to consider a work of interactive entertainment as a packaged consumer product--hence game reviews that focus on the number of levels, hours of gameplay, and other technical details. I am more inclined to consider a game as a cultural or … Read more