Kaspersky closing the Free version

[Jonathan95]

I just got an in app notification that says " We're closing Free plan - upgrade to Kaspersky Premium now! "

So, is this for real ?? And if yes how many time until then we have, cause doesn't says anything about that ??

Well it says "48 hours only" but i think that's for the offer.

[harlan4096]

Welcome to Kaspersky Community.

 

I think You can ignore it, and it will automatically renew the Free plan.

[Jonathan95]

7 hours ago, harlan4096 said:

Welcome to Kaspersky Community.

I think You can ignore it, and it will automatically renew the Free plan.

There is no need for a renew right now, there are 269 days left. So, this makes it more strange.

If Kaspersky doesn't retiring the Free plan, then why they are sending this notification ??

Maybe it's a nasty marketing ploy for the premium ?? Who knows....

Edited July 2 by Jonathan95

[william2469]

9 hours ago, harlan4096 said:

I think You can ignore it, and it will automatically renew the Free plan.

I got the same news and could not get one from Kaspersky to tell me anything . Can you affirm this to ignore an obvious news like this ?

It may continue to update the db but not the app itself 

Edited July 2 by william2469

[harlan4096]

I have no news about KFree closing, KFree installers still available...

[Berny]

I also remember the Kaspersky Free yearly renewal plan …

[william2469]

[Jonathan95]

10 minutes ago, william2469 said:

Yeah, mine says "269 days left".

I don't think that it have something to do with that.

Either it's a marketing thing (a bad one) or the Free it's truly gonna be discontinued.

Edited July 2 by Jonathan95

[Manic Man]

something is clearly going on cause I keep getting the message..

The main site now lists only 3 plan types. Standard with his £16 a year, Plus which is £20 or Premium for £21.. though all prices will go up as it's an 'introductory offer'.

 

Okay, free plan doesn't really bring in a HUGE amount of money, in theory (there are some related ways it does but.. oh well) but this kinda seams like Kaspersky trying to kill itself. Not only free plan members, but I can see some paid plan members not thinking this, and how they aren't really explaining things (best I can see) as not a good sign.

 

I guess that bit on the site just saying "Meet the new Kaspersky" is right.. Meet the new Kaspersky, we just want your money!

[Jonathan95]

3 hours ago, Manic Man said:

something is clearly going on cause I keep getting the message..

The main site now lists only 3 plan types. Standard with his £16 a year, Plus which is £20 or Premium for £21.. though all prices will go up as it's an 'introductory offer'.

 

Okay, free plan doesn't really bring in a HUGE amount of money, in theory (there are some related ways it does but.. oh well) but this kinda seams like Kaspersky trying to kill itself. Not only free plan members, but I can see some paid plan members not thinking this, and how they aren't really explaining things (best I can see) as not a good sign.

 

I guess that bit on the site just saying "Meet the new Kaspersky" is right.. Meet the new Kaspersky, we just want your money!

The Free isn't listed on their site since a couple of years at least. You can find it if you search it on google or if you have the link.

I got 3 notifications on total, the last was 2 days ago i think. Now i have zero notifications. Still works and it's available for download. So, i have no idea what's happening but i think it was just a marketing thing. We will see....

[harlan4096]

Free version download links in K. official sites are a bit hidden, but still there, just adding:

 

.com/free-antivirus

 

or

 

/downloads/free-antivirus

 

Some examples:

Quote

 

ESP: https://www.kaspersky.es/downloads/free-antivirus

UK: https://www.kaspersky.co.uk/downloads/free-antivirus

ITA: https://www.kaspersky.it/free-antivirus

GERMANY: https://www.kaspersky.de/free-antivirus

CANADA:
https://www.kaspersky.ca/downloads/free-antivirus
https://www.kaspersky.ca/fr/downloads/free-antivirus

https://www.kaspersky.ru/free-antivirus

https://www.kaspersky.ru/downloads/try-free-cloud-antivirus

GLOBAL: https://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/free-antivirus

LATAM:

https://latam.kaspersky.com/downloads/free-antivirus

 

[Manic Man]

Fair enough, but wondered if that is part of the 'old' thing more then whatever they appear to be trying to claim.. no clue.. but yeah, gonna have to just wait and see..

[Jonathan95]

4 hours ago, Manic Man said:

there will also be a couple of issues with using the Russian version soon. If you think an internet connection AV which is gonna put in country restrictions (as in free only in Russia) isn't gonna do a check, you will be mistaken. IF you want to use an illegal VPN, fine, but that will also create some problems.

If you live in an EU county there is no risk (i think) if you download it from the Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania as they are part of the EU as well.

But i don't know what's the risk if you download it from the Russia too. You may need to create a My Kaspersky account choosing Russia as your country to be able to activate it.

As for the vpn you maybe needed for the Russia but i don't think that you needed for the Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Edited July 24 by Jonathan95

[Guest]

I've just downloaded the Estonian KFree from the ru site (English selectable from the start of the installation) and see it is version 21.22.7.466 signed 22 July 2025. The version I'm on is 21.21.7.384 signed on 21 April 2025 (which is what I get if I try downloading it in my account). Anybody know the significance of the new version? Is it the one which will continue to get updates? Is it worth uninstalling existing, installing Estonian and will it link to existing Kaspersky account or better to create a new one? 

I don't know what the new version looks like as it stalled during installation as I was testing it out in Windows Sandbox.

[AlexeyK]

@bob77 At the moment no one here knows anything about the further fate of K. Free. 🙂

[Manic Man]

16 hours ago, AlexeyK said:

@bob77 At the moment no one here knows anything about the further fate of K. Free. 🙂

Yep. There doesn't appear to be an official word of any real content. I'm not in a ECC/EU/whatever the new name is gonna be country (UK).. come to think of it.. As Russia is part of Eurasia, maybe they will bother to update EU to being Eurasian Union or something one day when the EU bothers to grow up.. anyway..

I know nothing more then anyone else, just a bit of experience and code knowledge 

[AlexeyK]

1 час назад, Manic Man сказал:

I know nothing more then anyone else

There is some hope that everything will become clear in the near future.)

[merino]

On 7/24/2025 at 5:16 AM, Jonathan95 said:

I found an easier way.

From the Russian site if you choose Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania you don't need to change anything as they have 3 languages to choose that includes English, Russian and their native language.

I used VPN during registration, installation and activation to activate Kaspersky Free.
Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania are safe bet.

Edited July 26 by merino

[Jonathan95]

5 hours ago, merino said:

I used VPN during registration, installation and activation to activate Kaspersky Free.
Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania are safe bet.

Nice !! Do you live outside of the EU or not ?? Did you needed to create a new My Kaspersky account choosing one of these three countries to make it work ?? As for the vpn i don't think that you needed for that but maybe only for the activation.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Jonathan95 said:

Nice !! Do you live outside of the EU or not ?? Did you needed to create a new My Kaspersky account choosing one of these three countries to make it work ?? As for the vpn i don't think that you needed for that but maybe only for the activation.

I did it too.
VPN. is not needed for download or activation.
The new account is recommended, I use it from Hungary.
But if you installed it, then it will communicate in its own language after downloading from the account!

Edited July 27 by Steve65
Improved message!

[Jonathan95]

11 hours ago, Steve65 said:

But if you installed it, then it will communicate in its own language after downloading from the account!

Can you explain this to me a little more ?? When you download it from your My Kaspersky it will be download it in the language/region you had choose in your account as i know.

And also if i understand it correctly you are from Hungary and you couldn't activated with your existing Hungarian My Kaspersky and you needed a new one choosing Latvia, Estonia or Lithuaniaas your country, right ??

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Jonathan95 said:

Can you explain this to me a little more ?? When you download it from your My Kaspersky it will be download it in the language/region you had choose in your account as i know.

And also if i understand it correctly you are from Hungary and you couldn't activated with your existing Hungarian My Kaspersky and you needed a new one choosing Latvia, Estonia or Lithuaniaas your country, right ??

Not quite.
I had to create a new Kaspersky account because it just activated.
First I installed it in English, registered an account in my own region.
I activated it, everything was fine.
Then I deleted Kaspersky Free.
I downloaded the application from My Kaspersky, now in Hungarian, you just have to download it, it downloads in your own language.
I installed it, and when activating, I logged into the newly created account.
That's how Kaspersky Free became in my own language, it didn't have the option to download in Hungarian before, only in English or other languages.
The procedure was the same until now, I basically had to install it 2x to get it in my own language.
My Kaspersky is Hungarian regional.
I hope I described it correctly.

 

Edited July 27 by Steve65
Amendment

[Jonathan95]

1 hour ago, Steve65 said:

Not quite.
I had to create a new Kaspersky account because it just activated.
First I installed it in English, registered an account in my own region.
I activated it, everything was fine.
Then I deleted Kaspersky Free.
I downloaded the application from My Kaspersky, now in Hungarian, you just have to download it, it downloads in your own language.
I installed it, and when activating, I logged into the newly created account.
That's how Kaspersky Free became in my own language, it didn't have the option to download in Hungarian before, only in English or other languages.
The procedure was the same until now, I basically had to install it 2x to get it in my own language.
My Kaspersky is Hungarian regional.
I hope I described it correctly.

Thank you for the explanation !!

So, you didn't had any problem activating the Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania version with your Hungarian My Kaspersky. That's what i thought, at least for anyone that lives in EU. Maybe if someone thet lives in USA, UK, Asia etc. needs a vpn upon the first login/activation to the application, but obviously i don't know for sure if that's the case.

And as you said and as i had said, from My Kaspersky you can only download the application in your language (depending the country you had choose). But it's not that bad as you need to download it only once, then you can save the .exe on your computer if you needed again.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jonathan95 said:

Thank you for the explanation !!

So, you didn't had any problem activating the Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania version with your Hungarian My Kaspersky. That's what i thought, at least for anyone that lives in EU. Maybe if someone thet lives in USA, UK, Asia etc. needs a vpn upon the first login/activation to the application, but obviously i don't know for sure if that's the case.

And as you said and as i had said, from My Kaspersky you can only download the application in your language (depending the country you had choose). But it's not that bad as you need to download it only once, then you can save the .exe on your computer if you needed again.

Absolutely correct!
When you start the installation, it automatically updates to the latest version, even if an older version is saved on your computer.

[Driftingraft]

Man, I'm so bummed out, been using this solution since forever, and while I dont really do anything shady online, Kasp has saved my butt a couple of times (dont know if those were false positives, but I trust the software enough as to assume they werent).

 

Did this method work for you @Jonathan95? really tempted to try but I dont have a VPN to activate a new account, although Steve mentioned it was all fine and it wasnt needed.