Is BD Antivirus Free actually free or not?

I used BD Free for a few years before the announcement about a year ago that it was no longer being offered. I switched around a few other free offerings but was never particularly satisfied with any of them. About a month ago, while looking for another package to use, I saw that a number of websites were still recommending BD AV Free and that the BD website was still offering a free version, so I downloaded and installed it. I assumed that it was a new offering, since it was unlikely that the website hadn't been updated when the old version was withdrawn.

Today BD AV Free is telling me that my subscription has expired. I don't understand how a subscription can expire to a free package that is still available for download from the website. Furthermore, the download page makes no reference that I can find to the free product being time limited in any way.

While the application is still running on my computer, I cannot interact with it's main interface in any way other than to click through to subscription offers on the website: all other functions are unclickable. I can trigger an update check through the systray, but that fails with a message telling me that my subscription has expired.

Is this normal? is the "free" software actually only a trial package? Is there a bug? Current version is 26.0.32.123, engine version 7.93954.

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