Incentive behind free software

there is no free lunch

what is the incentive behind companies offering free software let alone security software?

 

I'll assume that you're not talking about open source and hobby projects, right?

 

Take Avast for Example, yes there is a free version, but you have to pay for the full featured version. Once you install it you will be reminded occassionaly that a full version is available via email, or when you go to renew it. I guess it is a way to build brand loyalty.
Another good example is Malwarebytes, the free version does not run real time so Malware can get in w/o being blocked.
Whenever I work on someone's PC and they say it is slow, I install MB and other tools and run scans in safe mode, invariably malware is found.
Which leads me back to you opening statement - there is no free lunch, Pay for a full version, or pay me $60 per hour..

 

Regarding free security software, it's often simply part of a marketing strategy.
Just as spending millions and millions, on advertising for paid-only software and pre-installed trialware/bloatware, is.

Some companies like Avira, Avast and Malwarebytes have chosen not to 'fight' the huge marketing budgets of f.i. McAfee/Intel or Symantec, a fight they'd probably lose.
Instead they have chosen a different way to expand their user-base by also offering a limited version of their full featured products.
While I don't have any info on their financial situation, it seems to be a valid marketing strategy for these companies.

Perhaps there is no free lunch, but there are free semi-lunches; half a doubleburger, a mini portion of french fries and a small coke.
Add another free semi-luch and you've got yourself a complete free one.

OK, it's a pisspoor comparison/metaphor but you can use free security software and have complete protection.

 

Economics change significantly when there's a marginal cost of $0 for extra copies. All costs are in development, which may or may not be large.

But for security software, it depends on the company. It can be advertising, along the lines of what shareware used to be. Get some of the functionality for free, pay for a full version. Or it could be like Microsoft's Windows Defender, where it's just free software because Microsoft has the resources to offer it as a value-add, a reason to use their OS over another one.

And then there's the Open-Source type angle, where people just do it because they enjoy it. It costs very little to get a computer set up for development, and after that it's only time and electricity, so it's a very inexpensive hobby for the people that like that kind of thing. If they give their code away for free they get praise from the community, and sometimes someone else will modify it and add features they didn't know how to or think about.

The point is that there are many reasons people do things. There's no such thing as a free lunch, but that doesn't mean everything has to boil down to a monetary exchange. Maybe I want to buy that homeless guy a free lunch because it makes me feel good. I expect no compensation, it's purely money down the drain, and he gets a literally free lunch. But everyone's still happy from the exchange.

 

I think there was this state I forgot where that had a company offering free international calls via its service, and people wondered whether it was a scam or a data mining operation. I think some journalist uncovered it was taking advantage of some tax law that gave subsidies or something, so overall the person still made a profit until they patched the loophole.

It seems often there is some reason behind why something is offered free. For the variety of security software, it seems a little wierd also at times?

 

Differs - for Google it's collecting data/people profiles.

For Microsoft it's just polishing up their name (and all the "free stuff" is paid for by the OS costs anyway)

OpenSource projects - as people stated, they generally start off as hobbyist projects or maybe university work.

Leaves Security Software like Malwarebytes - I suspect it's just for their image.

 

It's not even the divide between free and paid. It's what works. Sure, Malwarebytes doesn't offer real-time scanning unless you pay. But it's lean and mean and doesn't hog resources like other programs I've seen.

And my customers know I'm in the business of making things work. Not charging them $60/hour to sit through what is essentially five seconds of keyboarding and half an hour's patience.

There is no free lunch, just smart lunch and greasy lunch.

 

free ones are great but it doesnt mean they will always be effective defense though. infact even tho I use clamAV, i seriously doubt its effectiveness sometimes because it is just so 'light'.

 

The "lightness" of a software is not a good measurement - look at McAffee - slows your computer to a crawl and makes it difficult to use - is it any good? No.

The key part of a modern antivirus program is the heuristic detection algorithm - up to date signatures are also important.
If you can write a small heuristic engine that's good then the product will be light. Alternatively, trust signatures only - but that won't protect against new malware.