Rating:

It certainly has lower resources requirements and allows for running in the background for an even less obtrusive user experience. The thing I value with this over Norton products. I would say that this is a set it and forget it anti-virus vs Norton’s vista like products.

All in all a good program with simple interface and installation.

4/5 stars

Rating:

My experience with McAfee so far:

The Good:

Installed cleanly, no problems. So far .

As far as I can tell it has detected and removed all the viruses that I have encountered but no one ever knows for sure unless you can run multiple AV programs on your PC and thats really not an option due to conflicts in the software.

But overal it seems that the protection in this version of McAfee’s software is very good.

Three user license is great, thats just the perfect number for most homes.

The Bad:

It’s a resource Hog, just like Norton. It slows down my PC when running, so if your on a underpowered PC this might not be for you. If your running Dual core or Quad core this should not be a problem unless your a gamer trying to get the most FPS.

The GUI will be baffling to the novice, it has options that are buried fairly deep.

Conclusion:

Worth the money, not bad to use, has a powerful but complex interface. It will be a welcome addition to anybody with a fairly modern PC, but will not be a good option for Gamers or people with very old PC’s.

Rating:

The “Plus” is as follows: protection for email, chat, & go online. Freely surf, search, & browse the web. Play games, watch videos, & be productive w/out interruption. WOW! ALL that! Yes, I’m being sarcastic. The next version is Internet Security which includes the 3 mentioned items and 2 more. Shop, bank, & trade online more securely. Let your children go online safely. GEE shouldn’t that already be in “Plus”? I think so! The last version is Total Protection. It includes all 5 items mentioned with 3 more. Know when someone connects to your home network. Safely search or click on links from friends, knowing your PC won’t be exposed to viruses or threats. Protect your valuable files in case you computer is lost or stolen. I repeat GEE shouldn’t that already be in “Plus”? YES! What a rip-off!

What it has going for it is it is a well known & trusted antivirus program. It is easy to install. (However, Norton & Avast! are also very easy to install.) And you can install it (McAfee) on up to 3 PC’s. That is great for us having the desktop plus 2 laptops. I have used older McAfee programs in the past & never had any trouble with them & so far, this one seems to run as smoothly.

Bottom line, I think this is a waste of money. If you only want the 3 features than get yourself some protection for FREE. If you want all the “extras” I guess you could get the Total Protection but I would strongly suggest checking out Norton first & see if they have a better “deal”

Update 4-27-2010:

Mcafee had a boo boo with an update causing the “blue screen of death” (google it, it just happened if you don’t believe me). I have had Mcafee on all 3 of my pc’s. Well not anymore! My laptop bit the dust. I had to reformat it & decided to install Microsoft Security Essentials on it for my FREE anti virus protection. Well well, my laptop is blazing by with no problems. Mcafee hogged the resources on this machine that it would crawl & Mcafee killed my laptop. I was so worried about my other 2 pc’s but they are okay. Phew! However this led me to believe that having one antivirus program from the same provider isn’t the smartest of plans. I could have lost everything! So I uninstalled Mcafee off my other laptop & put good ol’ FREE Avast! on it. Well well, that little bugger is chugging away faster & smoother than ever! I left Mcafee on my home desktop pc. When my subscription runs out, I will get another FREE anti virus rather than Mcafee. It is really pointless to have Mcafee when you can get all you need for nothing & not have your pc go to a crawl.

Rating:

I had to install a program which opened a dialog box to “on-line chat” with someone in a foreign country. This required me to allow a stranger to take control of my computer (do you really want that?) and prowl around. I had a difficult time communicating the problem. The CS rep kept insisting I had to uninstall my previous install on my desktop, even though I had TWO installs left. When I finally managed to make him understand, he erased all my settings in Internet Explorer. Even though the problem was finally solved, the whole process took almost 45 minutes, 35 of which were spent online. Also it took me several days to actually download the help client as I kept getting repeated messages indicated the McAfee server was unavailable. I was never clear what the problem was.

So why would anyone subject themselves to such misery? I can’t imagine.

Original Review (not changed):

The summary: A good anti-virus program which works flawlessly with Win7, but may annoy you during the setup.

I waited over a month to write this review because I wanted to do a clean install of Windows 7 Professional on a new “home brew” computer before testing it. I have avoided McAfee products for years because of several bad experiences in McAfee’s early iterations. So I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to give it a fair test that was unencumbered by other potentially conflicting programs or native problems.

I chose “Custom Install” from the setup menu since I like to see what’s being put on my computer. Obviously I chose to install “Virus Scan” but I declined “Personal Firewall” since its built been built into every Windows version since XP, SP2. I okayed “Site Advisor”, but said no to “Easy Network” since I could find no information as to what this is. (The packaging card attributes the lack of included instructions to “an ongoing effort to minimize the impact on our environment” although a cynic might suspect more of a financial motive.) After this the program downloaded something called “Compatibility Checker” trickled down from a slow McAfee home site (six minutes to download.) Downloading the Win7 update added another three minutes and the total install time came in at just under 12 minutes, a bit long I think (I have RR turbo.)

Just like Microsoft, McAfee requires product activation, but unlike Microsoft or Adobe requires your first and last name, email address and password, which I find objectionable. Another annoyance is the box (checked by default) which may put you on more spam lists AKA McAfee “partners.” Be sure to uncheck them unless you really want more email. Entering a password is more complicated than it should be. No password requirements are listed until you enter a password which is not long or complex enough and then you are informed it needs to be at least eight characters long with at least one letter and one number and no special characters. The only way to find a suitable password is through trial and error.

More objectionable to me is the attempt to get you to sign up for an automatically renewing subscription which charges your credit card one month before your year’s initial subscription ends at the “existing price — discounts and special pricing do not apply.” Furthermore once you’ve turned on auto renewal via your computer you are not allowed to turn it off with your computer. To not be charged again you’re required to call customer service. McAfee automatically gets your money even if you stop using your computer or someone steals it, unless you remember to call them. And even if you want to authorize payment years in advance, do you want to buy something without knowing the actual price? Why this helps anyone but McAfee is a mystery to me.

The plus to this program is it has, for five weeks at least, worked quickly and unobtrusively for me. It may be partly due to my new computer’s inherent speed, but with most virus checkers I can usually feel it pulling down my system as it toils in the background. Not so with McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2010. I also found the “Site Advisor” feature to work seamlessly, although it takes up another precious line on a browser increasingly burdened by add-ons like Google Toolbar, etc. Also installed with Site Advisor is a searchbox which pushes you to Yahoo and also sets your browser’s default search engine to Yahoo. You can turn this entire line off, but I found no way to set the site advisor search to another site, for instance Bing or Google.

For those who want a more complete program, McAfee will give you more bells and whistles at a higher price. But remember, those bells and whistles in the background eat up precious speed. I prefer a minimalist approach, especially since Win7 has a lot of built-in safeguards.

So yes, I give the program a solid but not completely enthusiastic recommendation once one gets past the annoyances I mentioned. (Has anyone ever actually flipped over an antiviirus program?) If I find any long-term issues, I’ll post an update