Update: This offer seems to be invalid now. For everyone who did not get Kaspersky, I suggest you read my list of 6 free security applications and grab the excellent antivirus/antispyware mentioned there (i.e. Avira Free 9).

However I would like to say one thing: below there is a link to a post on Raymond.cc which has directions on how to turn this Chinese Kaspersky into English. However a dotTech reader, jumbi, has personal experience with doing that. His warning is as follows:

Warning to readers who follow Raymond advise to use english version with chinese key:

Today after almost a month that I had installed Kaspersky with this method, an alert appeared that the program is not activated now!
(Of course it was activated before).

I suppose, somehow (probably with an update), Kaspersky Labs found out that the key is for Chinese version…

Now I am bored to do the procedure once again, since I know it WILL APPEAR again in the next month or so.

The same happened also to another computer I had it installed.

Unless there is a solution to this, I suggest to your readers to avoid this method.

The website where you can attain this offer is in Chinese so don’t freak out. Also note that the text you see  on that webpage will depend on which encoding is enabled for your browser. Regardless of the text you see, the procedures that are shown in this post still work; just follow the pictures!

• Go here. The website looks like this:

You can also view an English version of this page via Google Translate, but once you submit your email, it will turn into Chinese anyway, so what is the point.

• Fill out the form you see in the middle. You have to enter your email in the first two boxes, and type any message in the big text box (the message can be as short as one word).

• You will be brought to another page in Chinese. Your emails will be listed and you will have to enter a confirmation number and hit the left most button at the bottom. Think of this as the Chinese anti-spam.

• The next page that loads will prompt you with a message box. Hit “Cancel”.

• Go check your email. You should have an email from “noreply@pcstars.com.cn” with the subject (it is in Chinese) “????????????2009?????”. You Kaspersky AntiVirus 2009 code will be towards the top-middle of the email

• Now you have to download Kaspersky. This key does not seem to work with the English version; you need to download the Chinese version:

Don’t worry – according to the Kaspersky forums, pressing Shift + F12 will change the interface from Chinese to English and Shift + F5 will change it back to Chinese. So Install the Chinese version just as you would install the English version but when you actually run Kaspersky, press Shift + F12 to change it to English.

Update3: People are reporting that Shift + F12 is not working.

Update4: Raymond details on how to turn the Chinese version into English here. I have not tested this myself.

That is it. Just three things to remember:

• Only 50,000 license keys will be given out per day. So if you don’t get one today, check tomorrow.
• You need to activate your license (meaning actually install KIV 09) by April 1, 2009.
• This is AntiVirus. Meaning this includes protection against
  • Viruses, Trojans, worms
  • Spyware & adware
  • Identity theft & phishing

This does not include a firewall, or any other security essentials. To learn more about essential programs that you can get to compliment Kaspersky, visit top 6 programs that will provide the best security for you and your computer – for free.

Enjoy.

(Credit goes to Rino at Raymond.cc for posting this.)