PRAGUE, Czech Republic: A Brazilian is the 160 millionth registered user of avast! antivirus and has won a sweetheart trip to Prague for two.
In fact, it really is a sweet deal, as it will be Fabricia’s honeymoon and she will come with her husband. It took so long to convince her that the offer of an expenses-paid trip for two to Prague was real – just for registering a copy of avast! Free Antivirus – that AVAST has almost added another 20 million registered users in the meantime. We just hope it will be easier to give away the next trip to Prague.
“This shows our user base is huge, global, and growing fast. I don’t know of any other antivirus company with 100-million users, let alone crossing the 160-million threshold,” said Vince Steckler, CEO of AVAST Software. “I’m looking forward to welcoming Fabricia this week and I hope to soon meet the 180 millionth user in Prague.”
So how did we get here? On May 27, Fabricia downloaded and registered a copy of avast! Free Antivirus for her home computer. That’s all. Then she went on with her normal life in all its various aspects of work (health sector), love (fiancée), and daily life (planning a wedding). She had absolutely no idea of the commotion that her simple registration caused over 10,000 km away in the Czech Republic.
In Prague, Julia Szymanska, the AVAST Community Manager, had been getting ready for the registration counter to reach the 160 million mark and was preparing a special trip to Prague for the lucky person. With around 100,000 new registrations a day, the numbers add up quickly. Thankfully, Fabricia had registered her copy of avast! with a valid email address. But communicating with Fabricia was not simple as there was no response to the first few emails from AVAST. She does not speak English and at first she thought the emails were spam.
While some AVAST staff were ready to give up, a Brazilian colleague took over the task. Marcus Taviera Googled her email and name to find her work address, then gave her a call. After several rounds of communication, he succeeded in convincing her that the AVAST offer was real and that she should accept it. And when we learned that she would soon be getting married, this put the expenses-paid trip into a new, very romantic perspective.
The newlyweds will soon arrive in Prague. For the two of them, we hope it will be the sweetheart trip they remember for the rest of their lives. And for the rest of the world, it should be a reminder that even a free antivirus can be very good to its users so always pay attention to any emails from AVAST. After all, we are about to notify the 180 millionth user that they too have won an expenses-paid trip to Prague.