McAfee 4690 DAT

Hi Folks,
My PC got fried and I am reinstalling Mcafee AV only to find I need the old 4690 DAT in order to upgrade to the latest engine.

I cannot locate the 4690 DAT file anywhere for download. Does anyone by any chance have it??

Thanks,
Neal

 

You can download the dat file here
http://download.mcafee.com/updates/dldat.asp

 

Why don't use a newer antivirus. ?

 

1. Thanks, but I already tried that link. The URL's pointing to the 4.x DAT's are invalid and give an "Http 404 Page Not Found Error". McAfee is not distributing older dat files anymore.

2. I am trying to avoid purchase cost of new AV so would prefer to use my old AV and just upgrade it. If I can't find the 4690 DAT then I will simply have to buy a newer AV as you suggested.

Thanks.

 

No need to buy anything since there are several reputable free av's available. You can't really go wrong with Avast! 5

 

Thanks, I'll look into it. There is a website called "AV Comparatives" that has published some comparison studies (of-course I am hoping they are not sponsored by any of the AV companies and are independent testers).

Apart from cost the main reason I wanted to stick with an older version of McAfee is because the newer versions are bloated resource hogs, I don't want or need all the additonal features like Firewall, Anti-Spam etc etc. Just want a plain solid AV engine with a very small footprint.

A preliminary hour of research identified "Avira Premium" and "Avast Free" as better alternatives to McAfee. Does anyone know if either of these have small footprints?

 

You don't want to get into an A vs. B issue. So I will only comment on Avast 5 free version. I have tried a lot of antivirus programs over the years- paid and free. And I have licenses I could use to install a paid av on either my desktop or laptop now. But after downloading Avast 5 and setting it up I am completely happy. The only reason I would consider changing at this point would be to upgrade to Avast paid version, just to support the company.

Avast 5 is very light and I use Microsoft Office programs (Outlook, Word, etc) and they open very quickly. And I have not noticed any slow down surfing the internet. I have the following shields of Avast enabled- Network Shield; Behavior Shield; File System Shield, heuristic sensitivity set on high; Mail Shield, heuristics sensitivity set on normal; Web Shield, heuristics set on high. I believe the only other tweak from default settings I did was to enable scanning for PUP's (Potentially Unwanted Programs).

On my desktop I am also running Prevx paid version and this Avast/Prevx combo is lighter than any single antivirus I have tried before. I am also just using the windows 7 built in firewall. On my laptop I am running a combo of Avast/MBAM paid (along with Online Armor Premium firewall and Hitman Pro for demand scans). This combo also seems pretty light compared to others.

BTW- on my desktop I am running Windows 7 Ultimate, 32 bit and on my laptop I am running Vista basic, 32 bit

 

since you have a valid license may as well use the lastest version of mcafee.The newer versions of mcafee allow custom installs so you can install only the av if you want to.

 

Thanks fo rall the advice.
Well after spending another hour reading up on comparison studies, reviews etc I have come out more confused than ever. It seems alot of the free products reach very deep into your machine and are usually difficult to uninstall/remove totally.

Avast has had some real issues with v5, their forums are full of people complaining about this version so I'll stay away. I'm also not keen on having to download a special uninstaller to uninstall a program ... thats bad news as far as I am concerned.

McAfee is used at every corporate office I have ever worked at in the past 10 years, easy uninstall, earlier versions were low footprint, so I can always fall back on that if needed.

I downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and it seems ok, lightweight, a bit slow with big scans (but I'm used to that as mcafee was a pig too) .... also easy uninstall option, so looks like I'll stick with this for now. I dont download p2p crap, crackz or warez, nor do I surf dangerous websites etc so for now it seems a Microsoft product is my choice (yes I know, even I am surprised that I chose Microsoft!!!).

p.s. was going to use malwarebytes too but that thing is impossible to remove once installed .... so will just rely on MSE.

 

MBAM is not possible to remove after installed! Where did you read that info?

 

MSE also has its fair share of anomalies.

1) I have come across a couple of pc's that had MSE installed, the gui would no longer load, and it would fail to uninstall. When this happens you cannot install over the top either. The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility may or may not remove it successfully.

2) Update issues. It's supposed to update once per day but that isn't always the case. There are some workarounds for this issue.

3) No http or pop3 scanner. Not a big deal to some folks though.

4) High resource usage at random times unless you exclude certain core processes.