Dell has apparently dumped Norton for McAfee

In the Dec. 2004 catalog just arrived in the mail, Dell is now offering McAfee SecurityCenter for $69, and no mention of Norton. This has to be a huge kick in the groin for Symantec, to lose the biggest PC maker to your rival. It may be well deserved.

The price is described as "a savings of over 35% off the regular value price." Does anyone actually pay a hundred bucks for McAfee anywhere, or is this just one of those inflated "list price" quotes? I think $69 is more or less the going price at Staples, Office Max, et al.

This change brings up the question of what I will do when my Norton NIS subscription expires in 2005. Dell never supported NIS, so that's not an issue (hell, they barely support Dell). For me it's the old story of "is the devil you know better than the devil you don't?". I have complained here about problems with live updates and Norton failing to load properly. Others say the AV slows down your system; probably so, but I can't tell myself as I have no benchmark. Symantec doesn't really support their software either, I have found, at least not at a reasonable cost; I think they charge 1-900 phone sex prices for phone help.

Issues for me as I see them in choosing a new security suite:

* Does the software do its job? - the most obvious and essential characteristic. How well does it block or remove malware; active scanning/blocking is preferable to scanning/removal after the fact. Is it more or less all-inclusive: AV, other malware, firewall, etc.? The fewer other packages I need to install from other vendors the better for many reasons, including cost, updates, complexity, and compatibility.

* How straightforward is the installation? - I don't mind if it takes a little while, but is it basically foolproof for me and my system, or are there needlessly complex error-prone steps in the process?

* What kind of support/help is offered? - installed with the software, company web site, email, 1-800 phone (my choice), forums, etc. I found out early on that I had too many vendors when I had a problem - Dell, Symantec, Microsoft, and Verizon DSL/msn. They can all pass the buck and blame or suspect somebody else.

* How easy and frequent are the updates? - critical for some malware, depending on your computer usage habits.

* Will it work or at least co-exist peacefully with other installed security software, including Microsoft SP2, various antispyware packages? - It seems to be well-known that two installed AV systems can conflict with each other, much less so for antispyware.

*Cost - not that big an issue if it's worth it, a real issue if it's not.

* How difficult is uninstalling the software? - Norton is said to be hell; you have to remove every trace before you install anything else. I've read some horror stories online about this.

*Ease of customization - not an issue for me personally; I'm too much a newbie to screw around with arcane settings that I don't thoroughly understand. That only creates potential problems. Plain vanilla is fine right now.

*Has the software been around long enough that there is some general consensus that it works? - Most computer mags and sites in very general terms like the same software, but on the other hand, read some forums about a product - some users love it, some hate it based on their own individual experience. It can be hard to get a feel for something when you read these posts. Obscure products, especially freeware that may not be well supported, are out of consideration for that reason (not enough data).

I may wuss out and re-up Norton, only because of the aforementioned difficulty uninstalling, and NIS is a known quantity, even if a mediocre one.
They will probably be around for a while, so updates should continue, as would support if they had any (losing Dell will hurt, though). If I get more confident, I might consider McAfee, Panda, Trend, perhaps others(?) too.

Any thoughts?

 

mcafee/panda/trend and nod32 would all be worth trialing to see which one runs best on your computer. i have run all three that you mentioned but substituted nod for trend which in my opinion is a better av.

bigc

 

when i got my dell last year it had the mcaffe security center on it already. i hated it. i got rid of it and got nis2004. my dell fried so i used the nis2004 on my new computer till last month when i got nis2005. i have had no probs with either.

 

I am a mcafee man. Don't like norton. Seen it miss to many times and had to use mcafee or trend to clean up what norton missed. For support they have a forum, live chat and I think email to. I always used the live chat or forum. They do have telephone support but it’s not free. I don't like the security center on it and the privacy service can be buggy sometimes, but it is still good in my opinion. You can buy the internet security suite for like 49.95 or 69.95 and you can easily find a 20 or 40 dollar rebate in several stores. Like staples, officemax or officedepot. And amazon offers it to. So it will cost only like 20 or 30 bucks after the rebate. I would not spend 69.95 though without a rebate, that’s a rippoff. I would spend 49.95 though, can’t beat 50 dollars and get av, firewall, spamkiller, and privacy service in my opinion especially with a rebate and after the rebate you are looking at 20 or 30 dollars. And now the av has spy/ad ware built in. Still need adaware and spybot though no av company has caught up to updating and some even detecting like adaware and spybot has even though most say they detect it now. I like mcafee have used it for years. It ranks high on the virus testing sites. I have not seen any problems between mcafee and other antispyware products. I have pestpatrol, adaware and spybot and no problems. Tried giant and spyware doctor and others and no problems there either. No problems with windows xp sp2 either. It is not hard to install. To completely remove it, it is like most software, there is left over dirs and registry items. I messed up one time and installed another av without uninstalling mcafee first and it was a nightmare. I finally uninstalled mcafee using the normal uninstaller and everything was fine. But like I said if you want to completely remove it you have to remove the left over dirs and registry keys. They will give you instructions how to uninstall it if you have problems uninstalling it. Never install 2 av’s on one computer, and yes mcafee does not like you installing another av while it is installed. Like I said it was a nightmare when I forgot to uninstall mcafee before I put that other av on. It will cause problems. Updates are like once or twice a week. If they mess up and have some false positives they release the new dats as soon as they are fixed. From what I see they fix the false positives pretty fast. They had some false positives not to long ago I think and was pointed out in these forums and like 2 days later it was fixed. Might look it up or someone will confirm that. Well here you go https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=37735&. Mcafee was founded in 1989 http://us.mcafee.com/root/aboutUs.asp. They have trail software if you want to try any http://download.mcafee.com/us/eval/evaluate2.asp.

 

McAfee 7 (you can still purchase it over the net) intercepts more bugs. It doesn't have issue with the virus definition update subprogram. It is lighter than NAV2004. And it costs $5!

You must REGISTER NAV2004/2005. That's a big no-no in my world. I can put up with user name and pw, but not this ET "phone home" garbage. I have NO IDEA what is being sent to HEADQUARTER! My biggest gripe with NAV is that it bogs down your PC (you don't notice it because you don't have a good reference point). Oh yes, that darn LiveUpdate thing can malfunction, resulting in NO NEW AV signature file. That's almost as bad as not having an AV in your PC.

If you want plain vanilla stuffs with good performance, then I would suggest Zone Alarm Pro 4.5.594.000 (do not use version 5.0, 5.1, or 5.5) and McAfee 7 AV (no McAfee security center). NOD32 is lighter than McAfee, but will cost more $. All of these products are quite robust, and will generally get along with most systems.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee compatibility in the software business.

 

I am familiar with two systems that run McAfee - one AV only and the other the firewall as well. I personally never have used it.

Has a good reputation as far as doing the job. My beef w/McAfee is ActiveX has to be enabled for both AV and firewall updates. From a security standpoint, just don't like that.

Regards - Charles

 

McAfee just been kicked out by Hotmail and replaced by TrendMicro

Thats all about McAfee security lol

Kaspersky is the only one best AV today!

 

McAfee is far better than Norton, much more user friendly and its Firewall is far superior and doesn't cause the 'blind' connection problems that many Firefox users complain about. As for paying $69 for McAfee IS, well I wouldn't consider buying a single accessory or peripheral from Dell - all they're doing is recouping money from their 'cheap' system package prices.

 

I doubt Dell has dumped Norton. I have a one year old 8300 Dimension and I specifically specified NAV 2003 when I got this new computer. They were pushing McAfee but if you looked closely when you went to buy at the Dell website, you could specify Norton instead. I sure didn't want McAfee because it is far more difficult to remove than NAV. Plus, McAfee uses IE to update which is a big no-no since I never use IE and don't like ActiveX. What I actually wanted was Dell to sell me a computer without any av and they wouldn't do that even though I was buying through Small Business! They reversed that policy after complaints and now on Small Business site you can buy without an av installed. I was just going to uninstall NAV as I had a license for two other avs and I intended to put one of them on the new computer.

Dell has always emphasized McAfee or Norton alternately. One year, or even for a couple of years, they push one and then they push the other for a year or so. But I have never heard of not having both McAfee and Norton as choices on a new Dell. I wouldn't go by the catalog (which I haven't received yet...very delayed in Hawaii). Go to Dell and set up to buy a system and see what av choices you are offered.

 

I don't know where you got your information, but mcafee is a cinch to remove compared to norton. I have used every version of mcafee since 5.0 and never had a problem removing it. But norton? that is another story altogether.

bigc

 

I don't have any experience with Norton, but I, too have found that McAfee is easy to remove. I have removed versions 4.0 and 5.0 without any problems.

 

well, one time i had to remove norton and reinstall it. and it wasnt hard to do. after using the uninstaller just do a search with everything showing, in the options, and search for nis and nav. delete all it finds. then search for liveupdate. delete all it finds. of course making sure what you delete is related to norton. and thats it. not hard and dont take but a few minutes to do. and all im hearing is people thats been using the older versions of norton stuff. what about the newer stuff. i have nis 2005 and i have no issues with it. tech support has been great for me when needed. it just boils down to what people like and are comfortable using. me, its nis2005.

 

Removing version 4 and 5 doesn't count. Those were easy and a very long time ago...on my almost 6 year old box.

I'm talking about removing the McAfee security center which is almost impossible to remove. Even Dell admits that and recommends NAV if you don't intend to keep McAfee. I would think that McAfee Enterprise is easy to remove. It is just the last couple of retail McAfees that are so difficult.

Norton is easy to remove. I've had NAV 2001 on my old 98SE box and 2002 and 2003 beta on that box. On my XP box it came with 2003 and was easy to remove. I had to clean up a few strays but I have never had the problems some report with NAV removal.

I have not removed McAfee since 4.2 until I trialed McAfee 7.0 and had it destroy IE and OE. It was easy to remove. It is just beginning with 8.0 that from all the comments at dslr and other sites I gather it is extremely difficult to remove if it is the retail version with the security center.

 

You're right, Mele20! But it sounds like bigc73542 has successfully removed more recent versions of McAfee.

Questions for bigc73542: Was there a best sequence in which to remove the components (eg., AV first, then firewall, then security center)? Did you have to use a registry cleaner to remove all of the remnants? If so, which one did you use? Thanks.

 

thanks mele20. at least i have one person who agrees with me. that norton is not hard to remove if needed.

 

Just to clarify...I agree with you through NAV 2003. I don't know about NAV 2004 or 2005. I have not used either of those versions. They may or may not be difficult to remove.

Let me also add that you have not put your easy removal of NAV to the test as you removed and then reinstalled. The test of how well NAV was removed comes when you no longer use ANY Symantec product and you install another av and have problems with its stability and after much investigation it turns out a few bits and pieces of NAV are still in hidden corners of your system and are bothering the new av. Or, you have removed all Symantec products, your new av works fine but suddenly when you do some routine something up pops an error box saying that a Symantec driver cannot be found ....uh oh....now you realize NAV didn't cleanly remove all of itself.

Even though I said NAV through 2003 was easy to remove, I do still have shared Symantec dlls and one shared very low level driver. I was reluctant to remove the shared dlls as they might be needed for something else...probably not...but....this is a dilemma that the user should not have to face. So, in a sense NAV has not totally cleanly uninstalled although I have not had stability or other odd problems running other av after removing NAV. As for the low level driver which Windows complains about periodically evidently the path is missing since the NAV uninstall removed that but the uninstall left the driver so in some situations Windows looks for it and can't find it and doesn't need it because NAV is gone but in this sense, I will admit that the NAV uninstall wasn't totally clean.

 

well as i said before mele20 i havent had any really bad issues with norton and the reason i put it back on is because i like it. i only had to reinstall cuz of a minor prob once or twice but was no hill to climb to rectify the situation.