McAfee AV now updates daily

From to-day, McAfee updates daily and these are not beta DATS;

http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=41429
http://vil.nai.com/vil/daily-dat-faq.asp

But not at the weekend unless a new high risk outbreak occurs.

 

Well McAfee daily update is not working for me, with VirusScan 9. I have the 4432 DAT from yesterday's weekly update, and though the 4433 daily DAT is out, all I get is the "already up to date" message after attempting manual and automatic updates.

Even went to the McAfee site and used there "are you up to date" feature, which told me I was not up to date, but then when I clicked to update all I got was the "already up to date" message again.

Daily updates does not seem to be quite ready for prime time yet.
Anyone else having problems with this?

 

Works fine here on 8.0i

 

Exact same thing here, also with 9.0, tells me that I'm up-to-date with 4432.

Acadia

 

Here is thread to watch at McAfee's Forums:
http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=42242

HTH

 

Ha! This policy just announced at the McAfee forums seems to have taken everyone by surprise:

Daily DATs - FOR CORPORATE PRODUCTS ONLY!
http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=42302

My McAfee subscription is due to expire in about 30 days so looks like I'll need to SERIOUSLY be on the hunt for a replacement now.

 

Ok . I do not use McAfee Virusscan . But , in reading in the above link , HOW STUPID IS THIS ? If you are a home user , you are not worth their time or effort ? Daily updates will not be available to you until summer ? So , they have daily updates but , not for the home user . That in itself would make me tell them to drop dead . How dare them ! So the corporate environment is MUCH more important than the home user huh ? Funny . And people use this crapware ? And another question , I got from reading the info in the above link , they only update once a week ? Again , people actually use this crap ? Wow . Not trying to offend anyone but , ONCE A WEEK ? Why would you use this ? These are serious questions as I am always trying to find out why people feel the way they do about different software . Seems this one is REALLY poor .

 

You summed up how I feel about it hollywoodpc. Too bad, because McAfee has very high detection rates for a wide variety of virus/trojan/malware and is smooth and reliable running on my machine, with only a medium hit on resources. The corporate version has a far better user interface and operation than the consumer version - you'd think they would bring the home users up to that level too, but no, they go and provide daily updates to corp users now and leave the home user with weekly updates. As I said, I'll not be renewing my license when it comes due next month.

 

It's rather unexpected news to hear Mcafee announce that the daily dats are for their corporate customers only.

However, aren't the dat updates on Mcafee's website compatable will all recent versions of VirusScan (home and enterprise included)? I'll bet that while Mcafee's home version won't autoupdate to the daily dats, that the dats will work when installed manually.

http://www.nai.com/us/downloads/updates/default.asp

 

Sorry but , isn ' t the point being them telling you NOT to use them as a home user ? And agian . Why would anyone use an AV that updates one time a week ? My God . That just stinks . Who pays for that junk . Too funny . Everyone with sense needs to walk away and tell them to stick it . What a joke . I , personally believe , that their attitude is one of arrogance ! They make you pay for this . And you get weekly updates . Understand this guys , and gals . " WEEKLY " . An AV program that updates WEEKLY . That is a joke . I would love to see them go belly up . there are too many good AV programs out there for these ( edited ) to steal your money .

 

For heavens sake, I think y'all are overreacting: McAfee is similar to Norton, they will update more than once a week if there is a real viral threat in the wild; c'mon guys .. hehe .. McAfee is an excellent AV, it performs comparably to KAV, and in some tests has actually outdone KAV, in detection. I still think KAV is the best {and I'm a NAV user so that isn't my bias saying that}, but McAfee is a close second, IMHO. Just my two cents, as a "passerby" to this discussion.

 

As usualy, Randy, your "two cents" is filled with common sense.

Acadia

 

But it's better to detect some minor malware this week than next week right? One week is a pretty large time scale when we're talking about malware...

 

No over reaction here . I base what I say on what is in the above link . And , it is INDEED better to detect the small stuff all the time as opposed to a big threat or outbreak . Here is the deal . McAfee is as good as KAV ? Glad you feel thatr way . Enjoy it . Bottom line is it is NOT as good . How often is there a major outbreak anyway ? This is why companies do business . Some people just do not understand . And besides , this really is about McAfee telling you , as a home user , that you are not important . Glad someone can take up for them . Very sad people believe so strongly in inferior products . But , to each his own . As I said , good for you . McAfee needs more people like you to get their money . About 6 months back , i checked on McAfee . Correct me if I am wrong but , Professional reviews consistantly show McAfee being a bad performer and not well liked by the general public . Wonder why . Not bashing the product based on reviews . I bash it because of the updates and what was said about downloading the DAILY updates . Over react ? NAAAAA . Just sad to see people pay money for this .

 

But McAfee DOES have detection almost as good as KAV...the updates are its bad point though...KAV has hourly updates, McAfee should at least have updates every two days for us home users...If it wasn't for the updates and that SecurityCenter, McAfee is a good product...

 

Detection , as in using the on demand scanner . See . Many people believe that the on demand scan is the end all . It is NOT . real time protection is very important . It is better to catch it BEFORE it gets embedded . But again . This is about their arrogant attitude towards the home user . Period

 

Ya I know McAfee just doesn't care about the home user much...How else did I get reports of Enterprise edition catching somewhat more malware than home edition?

 

Very good . It is sad about McAfee . And thanks again for your info . It is good to discuss this stuff in an organized manner

 

Another thing to consider - these updates have become very confusing now.

As Randy posted in the updates thread, McAfee had a "weekly" update 4434 on 2/25. Actually 4434 is a "daily" update for corp users, as was 4433 the previous day, not a normal "weekly" update that consumers receive. At some point in time I assume one of the "weekly" updates (which are actually "daily" updates for corp users) will be allowed also to home users, but how to tell when a "daily" corp update becomes also a "weekly" home update other than whether a home user receives it or not? In addition, I notice there are still "daily" beta updates. So it seems there are at present three different types of DAT updates - daily beta, daily corp, and weekly home (which evidently will be essentially a daily corp released also to home users). Oh my!

 

Stop confusing me!

 

It is a little confusing, yes.

But like I said before, I'll bet that the daily dats will work with the home version even though autoupdate won't detect them. So far, the dat updates on their website have worked with both the home and enterprise version of their products and I doubt this has changed:
http://www.nai.com/us/downloads/updates/default.asp

Mcafee probably just wants to save bandwith by not having their home version autoupdate daily. Or perhaps they don't think their daily dats go through enough QA for home users yet.

I'm not making excuses for Mcafee, so please don't jump on me for that. I'm simply giving home users a way to use the daily dats that I think will work. Hopefully soon, companies like Mcafee and Norton will offer daily auto-updates to all of their users.

Edit: Regarding the beta daily dats, I believe that these are released hourly but with minimal or no QA testing.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Culvin. I downloaded and tried using the sdat4434.exe and the 4434xdat.exe to update VirusScan 9.0 and neither will install, they both say: Unable to find any qualifying product(s). Update process failed.

 

McAfee would make so much money if they just fired their entire consumer division, and let the enterprise engineers do both... (Does the consumer version even have public beta tests? What I liked about the enterprise version was that in beta, you would actually get responses from the people designing it).

 

Sorry to hear that. Mcafee will have to update their website and readme.txt now because those files used to work for both home and enterprise versions.

I guess if home users want daily updates, they'll have to use the betas:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/virus-4d.asp

The only other option I can think of is using the dat-4434.zip file to update instead of the executables. It sounds like this would be unsupported by Mcafee though -- you'd definitely want to back up those three files in case it doesn't work.

Shame on Mcafee for promising daily updates and then saying "corporate only" at the last minute

 

I purchased VS 9. Although I liked McAfee when I trialed it, I purchased it mainly on the news that McAfee was going to daily updates. Disappointed about the lastest news that it's only for the corperate edition.

Mine also shows the last update as 2/23/05. Tried downloading the dailies/beta dats with no luck. The McAfee site says my defs need updating, but when I try, it says they are up to date. Not a happy camper at the moment.