the software. However, by the late 1990s, the company was struggling financially. Alwil rebuffed acquisition offers by McAfee, who was licensing the Avast antivirus engine. By 2001, Alwil was experiencing financial difficulties, when it converted to a freemium model, offering a base Avast software product at no cost. As a result of the freemium model, the number of users of the software grew to one million by 2004 and 20 million by 2006. Former Symantec executive Vince Steckler was appointed CEO of Avast in 2009. In 2010, Alwil changed its name to Avast, adopting the name of the software, and raised $100 million in venture capital investments. The following December, Avast filed for an initial public offering, but withdrew its application the following July, citing changes in market conditions. In 2012, Avast fired its outsourced tech support service iYogi, after it was discovered that iYogi was using misleading sales tactics to persuade customers to buy unnecessary services. By 2013, Avast had 200 million users in 38 countries and had been translated into 43 languages. At the time, the company had 350 employees. In 2014, CVC Capital bought an interest in Avast for an undisclosed sum. The purchase valued Avast at $1 billion. Later that year, Avast acquired mobile app developer Inmite in order to build Avast's mobile apps. Additionally, in 2014 Avast's online support forum was compromised, exposing 400,000 names, passwords and email addresses. By 2015, Avast had the largest share of the market for antivirus software. In July 2016, Avast reached an agreement to buy AVG for $1.3 billion. AVG was a large IT security company that sold software for desktops and mobile devices. In July 2017, Avast acquired UK-based Piriform for an undisclosed sum. Piriform was the developer of CCleaner. Shortly afterwards it was disclosed that someone may have created a malicious version of CCleaner with a backdoor for hackers. Avast had its IPO on the London Stock Exchange in May 2018, which valued it at £2.4bn and was one of the UK's biggest technology listings. assumed the role of CEO and co-owner of Avast Plc in July 2019. A day later, he changed his annual pay to $1 and pledged his board director's compensation of $100,000 to charity. In October 2019 Jaya Baloo joined Avast as their Chief Information Security Officer. In April 2020, Avast released a new secure, private mobile web browser for Android based on