McAfee VirusScan

I've mentioned in a couple other threads that I find Mcafee to have too much impact on system performance to be worth it. A couple people disagreed with me, but since I didn't want to hijack those threads I thought I'd elaborate here:

Mcafee required ActiveX for registration and updates when I recently tried it. I've heard nothing about this changing. It seems counter-productive to use a security product that, in return, requires you to enable one of the worst security holes in Windows.

Mcafee has a security center that didn't serve any useful purpose that I could find other than using additional resources and serving as a platform to advertise their other products. This was a very annoying aspect of the software.

Mcafee used 5 processes to take up about 35 megs of ram on my system. This was with only the AV installed, and no scan was actively running (just the real-time monitor). It also noticeably slowed down read-access on my drive -- probably due to its slow scanner. This is especially annoying if you run heavy apps such as modern games.

It's not my purpose to make those running Mcafee feel insecure -- after all it has top-notch detection capabilities and a decent user interface (disregarding the security center). But I don't understand why someone would choose Mcafee when Kaspersky's detection is generally rated a little higher, and it doesn't use as many resources as Mcafee.

Btw, it was mentioned in another thread that Mcafee Enterprise is better than their home version. I've never used it, but if it's any different than what I described I'd be interested in knowing how.

 

Mcafee enterprise is probably one of the best av's I have ever used and I have used almost all of them. it runs very light and detects a lot of different malware that a home antivirus can't. The catch is that it is not available as a home av. It has to be gotten from a university or corporate environment. It is fairly expensive because of the volume license required, somewhere around $40.00 a seat with a 25 seat min.

 

I don't choose antivirus programs by looking at their detection rate, I choose the antivirus program that suits my needs and expectations the most. I don't use mcafee at all, but what happens when you use mcafee depends on your own actions and whether your computer has enough ram or power to be able to run mcafee properly. All computer users can choose their own favourite antivirus programs to use, but the choice is entirely up to the users themselves.
Some people say mcafee is excellent like a pro, while others say that mcafee is lousy with many problems, its normal for people to agree and disagree about antivirus programs like that.
And most of the time, corporate versions of mcafee are usually better than the home versions from what I've seen and heard.

 

At the present time, on one of my old computers, McAfee Enterprise has placed 7 processes in memory, taking up about 25-30MB Ram. BUT there is no noticeable effect on performance at all. What is particularly impressive for me is that even when the RTM is set to scan all files, even archives, it still runs very light even on relatively old systems.

It has none of the bloat of the commercial version but it has a few nice extras; http://www.networkassociates.com/us/products/mcafee/antivirus/desktop/vs.htm

The Home and Enterprise versions of McAfee are chalk and cheese. As with other AV's, the Enterprise version is the much better product

 

I have to say that although McAffee does take up a lot of RAM, the performance hit on disk read times and processor usage is very, very light. I'm currently using the Enterprise version (I used to use the home version before my university). I would but the performance hit just above NOD32.

 

Mcafee vs Kaspersky

Somehow I find Kaspersky to be more of a drain of my computer's resources than Mcafee.

Furthermore, I can get two Mcafee (home) licences for the price of one Kaspersky licence.

Scanning time is 'bout the same ...

Of course, the security centre really sucks. And the activeX activation is a pain. But as I'm getting it for my wife and her business partner, my primary concern is security and getting automatic updates.

 

McAfee 9 is a fine antivirus, probably second only to Kaspersky. The security center splash can be removed easily. You only need to allow the ActiveX once.