Initially, Avast Secure Browser was bundled with paid versions of Avast Antivirus. Alwil rebuffed acquisition offers by McAfee, who was licensing the Avast antivirus engine. It was incorporated into a few antivirus tools including Avast! Motherboard reported ""An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells 'Every search. Former Symantec executive Vince Steckler was appointed CEO of Avast in 2009. AVG Technologies is a subsidiary of Avast. Two major computer security companies, Avast and AVG, were founded in the Czech Republic. AVG was then acquired by Avast in 2016. Avast SecureLine VPN is a subscription based virtual private network (VPN) service developed by Avast. AVG was acquired by Avast for $1.3 billion in July 2016. The company sells both the Avast product line and the acquired AVG-branded products. Piriform Ltd is a British software company based in London, owned since 2017 by Avast. The company also sells management software for IT administrators to deploy and manage Avast installations. Some downloads, specifically YTD, were completely blocked by Avast. Avast Software said that it had an ambivalent view towards the product.