McAfee Underestimated?

Just wondering everyones opinion on McAfee/Network Associates. It seems to me that for some reason (maybe past history) that McAfee has a bad rep. From the various tests it seems that its detection is secondly only to KAV, but uses far less resources (cpu wise).

Moved from:
McAfee 3.x, 4.x
Norton 2001-2002
Panda Titanium
Norton Corp 7.1
F-Secure
NOD32 V2.0
KAV 4.5
NOD32 V2.0
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i -> so far very impressed

 

I agree. Run into several bugs with Enterprise Beta II. Holding off for a bit longer. Lot of people avoid them because support sucks and the consumer version is more of a marketing tool than an AV.

 

Mcafee is a very good av, but in version 8 the GUI is not very well liked. Ever since version 6.2 mcafee has had a good product with detection and unpacking as good as any other AV out there. But the version 5 series of mcafee gave it a pretty bad name that a lot of people just won't forget. but the three latest versions 6.2/ 7.03/ 8.0 have been excellent AV'S.



bigc

 

I read somewhere, cannot remember where anymore, that you CANNOT turn off the automatic update, that it WILL check for updates every four hours whether you like it or not. I personally would like to be able to control that feature.

Acadia

 

You can set it to do manual updates

 

YES, you can update it manually, BUT, you cannot turn off the automatic. You can update it manually all you want to but it will still check for updates automatically every four hours; I'm positive I read that somewhere, if only I could remember where ...

Acadia

 

I have all three of the versions I listed and you can turn off auto updates just by unchecking the little box in all three.

 

I have been using mcafee every since version 4. For me it has never missed but only one time cuase I forgot to udate it before they had the autoupdater. From what I see most people dont doubt its ability to detect and remove the virus,trojans,worms etc... but rather they have had some versions that was buggy some was real buggy. And yes I did email and complain on some versions myself and complained on their message boards but in thier defense, I do have to say that after they fount out the problem they tried to give solutions till they came out with a patch and they have always patched when they have fount major bugs in it. As far as detection hmm dont know what to say never seen it miss for me only one time, and other people that I know online and offline havent complained about it missing. I like it have tried alot of other ones and the only other one I would recommend is trend. I think mcafee or trend is the best av's you can buy. For the record I havent tried nod32 so I am saying this so no nod32 fans come knocking lol. Thats the next one I want to try.

 

Well, doing a quick Google search I did find this:

"But now the downside. Like most home UK users with standalone PCs, I connect to the Internet via a dial-up modem and BT land line. McAfee tries to update itself every four hours, but if you are not actually connected when it tries to access its website, it prompts you with the standard dial-up connection box every four to five minutes. You cannot turn this constant interruption off. This is incredibly annoying if you have no desire to break off from what you are doing just for the benefit of the virus checker. And if you pay actual phone charges rather than ISP fees, this program will cost you far more than the initial up-front subscription.

Re-setting the configuration to manual updating had no effect, nor is there any way to schedule updating from within the program. Eventually I got a clunky workaround from the McAfee helpdesk - who seemed well aware of the problem - by disabling the autodial function in Internet Explorer and then using Control Panel.

This is an infuriating design fault from a respected software producer, presumably stemming from a corporate assumption that all home users really ought to be continually surfing the Net. Crazy.

Product recall then, McAfee?"

Found that here: http://software.reviewindex.co.uk/reviews_uk/B0000DCSWG.html

But I still don't believe that this is exactly what I read the other day.

Acadia

 

I started useing mcafee back in version 4 and all the way up till last week when I changed AV'S and I have never had a pop up box come up in mcafee and I have always been able to turn off auto updates. It sounds like that gentleman may have had a corrupted install or something. I have never heard of mcafee doing that in the hundreds of installs I have done in my shop. That is a new one on me.

 

What bugs did you encounter?

 

Incompatibility with ZA 4.5 and 5.0, some random bsods, lockups coming out of hibernation.

It's Beta 2 of the Enterprise version of 8.0 so a bug or two aren't unexpected.

 

Humm.. haven't had any problems yet. Currently using a laptop, and come out of hibernation dozens of times, and haven't gotten a stop screen yet.

The only improvement I can give is in the area of the alert center. It seems that when it detects a virus, the alert center pops up and you can choose different actions when you highlight the message. But, after I select an action, it doesn't tell me whether it has performed it and also allows me to continue clicking any of the other buttons. (So its hard to tell whether the fill has been quarantined or deleted since you can push the buttons multiple times)

 

McAfee just needs to start their daily-update regimen already, as well as making it so the SecurityCenter is optional in the consumer version.

 

Could also be a SP2 beta compatibility issue. Dunno.

But most of my problems go away when I uninstall ZA. There was a showstopper bug when ZA 5.0 was initially released which pertained to McAfee 7, had to push out a quick fix.

I'd bet they haven't done enough testing with 8.0. Given the fact that this is a beta, who knows, might not even be in their testbed.

 

i'm using McAfee VirusScan Pro v8 and here is my opinion. when i say McAfee please take it as McAfee VirusScan Pro v8 and please bear in mind that i'm very lazy.

McAfee business policy is to nag you untill you either uninstall their product or buy another one from them. of course i was lucky enough not to face the automatic update problem as i tweaked my IE to ignore those connection requests. so this takes care of the problem. by the way if its true that it really checks for update then it should've opened some page when i'm online. didn't happen so i won't abuse the updater. if you are looking for a solid AV with blazing detection rate and phenomenal cleaning capability ONLY then go for McAfee.

but keep in mind that it is itself a NAGWARE. from the moment you turn your PC on it'll remind you that you're missing some ESSENTIAL softwares. though it detects ZA, it fails to detect other firewalls and even if you have one it'll say that you're unprotected. the whole Security Centre thing officialy drives me crazy. McAfee also forces you to download and install unsigned ActiveX components, it only knows the language of Web Install and it takes a some good time to update it through dial-up.

when your update subscription is almost over it'll remind you to renew by popping up some more annoying messages frequently. if you uninstall it it'll leave some files that'll autostart through registry and connect to McAfee. what would you call that?

i hope i'm not spoiling anyone's enthusiasm. i really mean it when i say its excellent in detecting and cleaning bugs.

 

LOL AMRX, that's why I'm using the Enterprise beta.

 

I started with Pc-cillin 98 (i got it on my motherboard CD hehe),next one was McAfee VirusScan 4.0 which was one of the best antivirus programs in that time(friend recommended it to me). After that i was using Norton from 2001-2003,but when i found avast! i noticed how big ~snipped~ Norton is. Thank god The only thing i hate at McAfee is their Security Center which is awful,uses memory which could be used for more important things and it has a very limited functionality (it somehow reminds me on terrible Symantec products).
Only good thing about this security center is popup message about new threats.

 

I don't like the non-enterprise version of McAfee. The GUI looks good, but ...

I have tried VirusScan Enterprise 7.1 as well. It missed a few trojans that my F-Secure Client Secure caught. So, I decided to stick with F-Secure( ). However, the enterprise version is much much better than the non-enterprise version.

I am waiting for VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i. Heard that it is good.