I remember when McAfee was actually respected, many many moons ago. But then, so was Norton. I have heard that Norton, in the last number of years, has managed to produce a decent product, at least in terms of not crashing the system and being able to uninstall it. I have read that Norton and McAfee are "top performers" for a very long time by lots of large PC magazines and such. My experience with both has been that the magazine reviews gave glowing reports based on a glowing checkbook and not much else. Avira and Avast, being free, have thier way with the likes of McAfee. I am not sure I know anyone who even buys it outright anymore. Only if it comes with thier new pc. Sul.
As of right now McAfee is on sale 50 % off,otherwise $ 79.99 for internet security and $99.99 for total security,for got about it.
Yes it does. I just purchased a Dell from Costco a couple of months ago. First order of business was to remove McAfee.
Ditto on that. As soon as I finished set up, I removed it. It's bloatware as well as ineffective and not inexpensive.
No. Everyone I know who bought a new computer with McAfee and purchased it eventually had trouble with it. From slowing down the computer to reregistration problems.
I find the title of the thread misleading and insulting. By asking if its 'worth it' for Home users you are implying that its worth it to someone somewhere at sometime. It is not. I remember when Norton or McAfee came pre-bundled on every machine and you never had working uninstallers so you had to remove the garbage on your own (Or in the preferred case just use your own copy of windows on it).
I have been called out to many home users who have relied on McAfee (and Norton and Kaspersky, for that matter). They are invariably aghast at either: -having had their machine infected despite running the product -having had their machine effectively paralysed by the 'weight' of the product -having had the product's install get all corrupted and unable to update etc. Money not well spent at all for these guys. Just my experience - of course, there may be many people who haven't called me who have no problems with these products at all... philby
Just trying to understand your post. You're saying you get calls on all three and you're not drawing any distinctions between them?
Their products and corporate philosophy are total crap ! I had major, major problems with their 'customer service'- or what they were trying to pass off to the public for CS. That was in 2005. I vowed to never again have any McAfee product installed for any reason. I have kept my vow.
I admire that. Usually such vows are associated with another well-known security company, but I can appreciate the same resolve with McAfee.
You're saying you get calls on all three and you're not drawing any distinctions between them? Hi Page In terms of users' great surprise that they encounter the 3 scenarios I listed, then no. People seem to pay for these products and expect security, reliability and simplicity. All I wanted to comment on was their incredulity when they discover they've paid for something that appears not to offer one or more of those three attributes. Maybe I'm not really saying anything more than that these products are viewed as magic fixes but aren't - so people seem to feel they've wasted money: A perception thing. philby
Would I be correct if I said that for the most part people who are noobies to computing and buying their first computer find McAfee already installed and think they are getting an AV free. It's only later that they discover that there's a nice fee to renew and even later that they discover why their computer is slow and sluggish. As they learn, they see that there are good light AV's that could even be free so they attempt to uninstall McAfee and find that it has become an octopus in their computer entwined every where. I'm sure there's a tool available by now that will purge McAfee from a system, and I'm sure the feeling of elation must be great to be free to get something good. I have never seen a post on Wilders from a McAfee user, so that's one reason why I think mostly uninformed noobies use it most of the time.
For several years, Norton had a deservedly bad reputation. Their home products had become so heavy and demanded so much in the way of resources that frustrated users abandoned them for better designed AVs and security suites. Faced with that reality, Norton went to work and seriously upgraded not only the quality of their products, but also dramatically improved their usability. I'm not a Norton/Symantec fanboy; I just believe credit for (their) decision to actually be proactive and do the necessary work to go from bad to very good should be recognized and applauded. If Norton will do it, why won't McAfee ? (ps: the same also applies to Trend Micro).
Glad you tossed Kaspersky in the mix. It belongs there. That last problem I dealt with was a McAfee, to Kaspersky problem. That was fun. He is now happy using another product. This is someone who turns on his computer once a day, if that much, reads email (he knows how to do so safely), video's with his folks only, checks his on-line accounts one a month or so. That's it. He really does not need an anti-virus, but he has been conditioned that he must have one to be safe.
My first order of business would have been to write zero's to the entire HD and do a fresh install of Windows. I think one always should when they buy a new computer. Especially with Dells because they come with a nice convenient restore disc... or at least did, for only a few bucks extra. Shortly after Vista came out I did this for a lot of friends/family that bought new PC's. The things crawled fresh from the store. I put XP back on them and trimmed it down... they loved me for it. It's fast enough on my 1 GB, single core setup. With multi-core CPU's and the full 3.5 GB of RAM is can read, wow, does it ever fly. If it were any quicker it'd be psychic.
Unlike HP computers that ship with a ton of extra trial software etc. I have ordered 4 DELLS on their web site since 2004, and the McAfee was the only extra unwanted crap that had to be removed immediately. I remove it before I even click on the McAfee icon, not giving it a chance to establish itself. No need for me to do a fresh install.
The tests I have seen for the last couple of years indicate that McAfee is a second class AV. The main test in which I have confidence is AVC. Jerry
No, not unless they are paying you to use it and the amount you are getting is worth the aggravation.
