Immunet: anti-virus in the clouds

Free is always a good price. How about free anti-virus software? How about free anti-virus software that works in the cloud?!

Immunet is a heavyweight in the anti-virus start-up business. Because there are so many contenders for the crown. Nevertheless, its founders are former Symantec and McAfee executives who developed a conscience when they realized that you can only ask a user so many times whether they want to upgrade their software. Well, I made that last bit up, but I know you can feel me, dude.

Anyhow, Immunet is a unique anti-virus solution based in the cloud. Who knows the voodoo behind that statement, but it does mean a decentralized application, and Immunet’s makers claim that this bottoms up approach let’s their software use the collective intelligence of all of its users for the benefit of the whole. Furthermore, it has a number of advantages over traditional solutions: it can reside side by side with any existing protection you may have. Secondly, it’s use of the collective intelligence of its user base means that it is better able to react to immediate threats, and that it is constantly up to date, as opposed to be being constantly updated.

Immunet checks for infection at three points: installation of an application, installation of an upgrade in the background or foreground, and detection at start-up of an application in case something was missed. You’d be surprised at how much stuff is installed on your machine at any point in time, and there is a feature of the software that shows you exactly what and when. Pretty cool stuff.

It’s early days for Immunet, but it’s getting a little buzz, and maybe a little bit of a momentum kick. Just check out the way the company is trying to leverage social networking, and Facebook in particular, to promote itself. I got a feeling about this company, people. Go try them yourself here. I get a commission on every sale. It’s free. So, it just about makes up for my pay at this rag.