McAfee Online gets a little pushy.

Current users of McAfee Online are reporting aberrant behavior caused by McAfees' recent forced d/l of the 'SecurityCenter' "enhancement" that comes as part of updating McAfee Online (installs whether you want it or not).

Examples of reported behavior include (but are not limited to):

Re-activation of TaskScheduler with automatic inclusion of the "SecurityCenter" 'services'.

Non-adjustable 'Update' time-setting thru TS for those services.

Increased occurence of ads.

Settings which re-set themselves regardless of how you try to change them upon re-start.

Seems to definitely be shoving PassPort use down everyone's throat.

Can McAfee users please verify, expand upon and/or add anything to this? Pete

 

           Pete

           using mcafee office....last update 4199...an have not had any changes to TM....no "extras" added...

           last update did place a log file icon on the desktop....this was a first...an quickly deleted....I keep McAfee on a very short chain....a rather sad statement of trust for one's own virus scanner....

          <passport> can not connect on my computer...

        should I notice  McAfee performing the sort of behavior you listed.....I will consider it a "trojan" ...the lowest form of "spyware".....an would remove it immediately......no compromises would be made on my part regarding such an issue.

       furthermore, if McAfee is in anyway associated with passport....it will be removed.


                       one potentially po'ed
                            snowman

 

     typo>    should read TS.........not TM...

 

This is a quote from the McAfee home page: "* Current subscribers will automatically get a FREE upgrade to the SecurityCenter AND the next-generation version of the service they currently own. This upgrade will take place as part of your regular update process over the next few weeks. Questions... " , so I believe it only applies to McAfee Online (not Office) users'.

The word "Questions" there at the end of that quote lead to a page that almost exclusively deals with PassPort and your Hotmail account.

Yeah, it looks pretty bad, snowman, but if you're not being affected by it... Pete

 

          Pete

          first....thanks for providing this thread....until now I had heard rumors of this..but wasn't certain.....soon as I get a pot of coffee into me...I'll send McAfee an e mail on this.

          the fact is..if McAfee is doing this to even one of its customers...its wrong!    An I refuse to associate myself with its products.  It has officially lost me as a customer..........

          certainly I could take counter measures to disable anything forcefully inplanted by McAfee updates...but that is not the point......this is exceedingly wrong behavior on the part of any software vendor.."marketing its products by force"   this is what adware does...not products that were rightously purchased.    an if I tolarated such behavior I would consider myself one very weak individual........

         there are freeware anti-virus scanners that don't use such tactics......

        anytime any program wrongly changes any setting on my computer..its considered a trojan.....

                              got to find the coffee pot

                                  snowman

 

        PETE

        I can only access the update page...can not access their homepage......to do so I would need to lower my security....LOL.....yeah right!

       at the pages I am able to access there is no mention of these "forced updates".....so in essence I would not have any pre-knowledge of this issue...unless by lowering my security....an going look for something I am not even suppose to know about....

       well....my decision has been made...


                          snowman

 

I hear you, snowman. I've gotta split for work - hopefully we'll hear more about this from other McAfee Online users. Pete

 

Spy1, sorry to hear you got bombed with the ad pop-ups there, and they're on every page too and getting bigger and bigger (i have a 19" monitor and they take up half of it....you have to pull them down and over to click the x box to close them)  Even when subscribers (why is it about that name i don't like...subscribers?) update their definition files, the page to log in on comes up then just as your about to type in your password, up pops an ad....have to close that first before loggin in to update. ~shakes her head~

i was very upset with my Task Scheduler being turned on and configured for me, even MORE upset when i realized i couldn't change it, not even the time.....and now when i boot my system up my firewall logs 3-4 connections to MaAfee's.....ads....without my even touching the program.

it feels like M$.............even going to McAfee's home page is almost overwhelming with flashing banners....mazes to search through for help....to the point by the time you get to something that resembles your question........you've forgotten what it was!!

This SecurityCentre that they are talking about, that was the blue icon that got added to my desktop (i have enough icons on my desktop and that takes up memory, so i like to be kinda in a li'l control as to what goes on there.)  i do have my browser set for not downloading or placing anything on my desktop, and usually programs give you that option, but there was NO options for any of these features!!

As for their SecurityCentre, when i clicked on the blue icon to see what this was, McAfee's SecurityCentre page was pulled up (a white page with just the name at the top)...loaded slowly, almost a min, and by the time the page was loaded enough to see what was on it....the scan was done.  i tried it again, it loaded a bit faster....but so did the scan.  It was finished before the page was fully loaded.  (makes me wonder what kind of scan that really was?  Or why the page takes so long to load....i am on cable and i have a PentIII 550 and if i remember right, the "update" loaded very fast)

The scan rating is 1% - 10%
1.  scanned for Anti-Abuse programs, got 1%  (i had Ad-Watch running)
2.  scanned for Anti-Hacker programs, again 1% (i had TDS-3 with execution protection enabled running, along with WormGuard 3)
3.  scanned for Security program (?), rated 5% there but it said i don't have a firewall (i have Sygate Personal Firewall and i have a router firewall)
4.  scanned for anti-virus protection........(here it comes)....10%!!  hummm....LOL 10% being the best protection.

so i have no other conclusion to come to with this scan except to say it was wrong.....not just the fact that i did not give permission for a scan...no, i don't believe clicking the icon to find out what it was, was my giving permission, but i also think this scan is terribly misleading and pushes you to purchase their new products they have to cover each of the scans above (with the exception of the anti-virus that is because you'd already have that.)

it's sad and i am very disappointed in a vendor i once had respect for.  i don't anymore, and i would not buy any of their products in the future.

 

apologies for the lengthy post but need to add a wee bit more

snowman, i think you are like me and probably many other's who try to look for the positive when there doesn't seem to be one.....but when i speak negatively about something i must also try and find the positive, and i think i may have (although it may be scrapping.)

if there can be anything positive about that false scan it may be in the possibility that some may learn about trojan attacks, abusive spyware, etc., and even if they choose to just click and look into those products a bit and even buy them, at least they might have something (although i would not say #1) but they would at least have something more than they did and a bit more protected then they were.

pattie

 

     Snap

     its a terrible disgrace what you are going through....no software vendor should ever torment its users in such an outrageous fashion!

     as yet I have not experience the behavior you mentioned......so perhaps its targeting a particular mcafee product......

     I would never presume telling anyone how to handle such a situation.     Personally just the scanning you mention would cause me to do a back-flip out of my chair.......just knowing that you and other mcafee users are being forced to endure this gives me the chills.

    no..I wont ever be purchasing mcafee products....there is no righting this wrong by a change of attitude on the part of mcafee.......once their customers lose trust...usually its lost forever.     there are far to many decent anti-virus vendors out there that provide equal or better anti-virus tools.   in fact...earlier I dowloaded the free beta version of bitdefender an will be giving it a look see this weekend.     an I am not even experience the problems you and others are....

                               snowman

 

       SNAP

       you mention in your post  about looking for a positive aspect in this situation....an yes I most definitely agree.....a security scan done rightously and with the full consent of the computer user can enlighten the user to possible security holes, etc.   an even in this particular situation a user can gain some insight...an possible prevention measures could then be taken....although it does not mean purchasing products from any one software vendor.

        changing the setting on a person's computer is a very serious matter......an my first quest would be to learn how to prevent such tactics,,,,or reverse the procedure.......an the list goes on.......

                           snowman

 

There is more bad then good when it comes to Mcafee. check these posts about users that find after updating they can not even use their Mcafee console to make changes because of an error about a wrong version .dll file. Plus Mcafee doesn't seem to be taking any steps to fix the problem!

http://www.pcmag.com/member_ratings/0,3041,s=1470&a=16617&mrp=2,00.asp




http://www.bugnet.com/analysis/0202/bugsight.html

"Product: McAfee VirusScan 6.0
Sent: Jan 28
Name: David Y

error: “Cannot get  'CentralFindPageWindowEx' from I:\Program Files/McAfee/McAfee Shared Componens\Central\Central.dll'.  The expected version of McAfee Central is at least 2.31.1140.

The above error message occurs immediately upon completion of installing the patch, "VS0602AU.exe". It also appears if I try to run VirusScan after the patch has been installed.  Of course, VirusScan will not run, so I have no virus protection. I am using Windows NT 4.0 WORKSTATION with Service Pack 6 installed on a stand-alone PC.


response: They have no cure. I've spent two full days to the early hours without success. They've had me remove the entire software package, that is VirusScan 6.0. They've had me delete the file, "Central.dll", and then run "repair", followed by installing the patch again. They've had me delete all the files in the Central sub-directory, then perform a "repair", followed by installing the patch again. Of course, I completely shut the computer down/off, after each aforementined attempts to correct the problem.

One of their Senior Tech persons, sent me an email with a form to complete and send back (email) to them. When I did this, the email message was (immediately) returned to me, stating I should go to their Web site for Tech support."

 

I can remember, long, long ago, in a Galaxy far away, there was a FTP server where you could download for free a small program called McAfee Antivirus. It updated weekly most of the time and the updates were free. It was just about the only AV in town and it seemed to work well.
The rest of the story is too sad to tell.  

 

        Network Associates (McAfee) seems hellbent on distroying itself...one bad business decision after another.....its board of directors if they have any sense will fire the chief CEO and entire marketing staff.

       first they abandon PGP.....an now ruin their bread and butter security business....at their webpage tracking drop from the sky like raindrops....a security company......plus they were the first to say that they would go along with carnivior.....an later retracked the statement..........

                                   snowman