Following on from some bad publicity for AOL, the ISP giant have released Active Virus Shield, a free Windows anti-virus solution. The anti-virus engine is licensed from Kapersky, but the application is very much AOL branded.

This isn’t the first excursion into the free anti-virus product market we’ve seen. Smaller anti-virus firm AVG offers AVG Free, and there are also other products like avast Home Edition and the open source ClamWin.

What’s interesting about this venture by AOL is that it’s not ad supported and you don’t require to be using AOL as an ISP or even have an AOL screenname to use Active Virus Shield. The definition updates also appear to be available on a free basis – all AOL want from you is a valid email address in order to download the software.

The Register’s take on this move is that it will drive more traffic to AOL’s site and help it rival ‘web portals’ like Yahoo. It sounds like a plan on AOL’s part, and considering their recent track record (not including the bad publicity) of giving users 5 GB of storage and other services, this may be AOL’s strategy.