opinions on "mcafee total protection"

is it any good?

 

I ran it through 2006 until my subscription ran out and then I switched to Virusscan plus simply because it is cheaper. I was very satisfied with Total protection while I had it though. I am very satisfied with virusscan plus also.

 

I believe VSP is still free from this web site-

http://www.natwest.com/microsites/personal/latest_deals/index.asp?referrer=online

Says one year license but I believe it gave me one for 18 months. I never have downloaded it though.

 

It looks like it is still a good offer

 

This thing just takes up too much CPU memory for me...

Off topic comment removed

 

mcafee no thanks.. i tried to like it i rreally did i ran it for a while it was just an aweful heavy program that imo just didnt have great detection whenever i would run an online scan from another company i always found something mcafee didnt fine.. just my opinion though

 

And theres that Security Center that seemingly takes forever to open...

 

i havnt tried the total, but the suite for 2008 is fine.

but yeah, it can take a few seconds longer to load up the security center (which i think is because of the splash screen)

 

Hi, folks;

Installed one , 2008 version, for a friend of mine during weekend. He has a growing family, therefore Total Protection 's features are just the right mix for him. Soon after installation, everything runs very smoothly; firewall will ask few permissions for reg changes, network connections etc, Side Advisor plus will alert you when questionable sites are visited. Utilities such as quickclean, diskdefrag are so so , but are convenient, not needing to acquire others to perform same duties. In general, it pretty much is in auto cruise mode, few user's interactions. After a while, you will wonder whether it is working. IMO, it is a great app for average PC users. It has a great potential to be a leading all -in one security program. I will recommend it to friends and will use it when my similar ones expired. Take care.

 

Well, maybe you'll be less satisfied after you've read this (I have the same product): McAfee has a 'relationship' with Doubleclick regarding sharing information/data, which has a 'relationship' with 3com ... I don't know how far it goes. Since I have the new McAfee version I no longer get Doubleclick cookies on my system ... exchange of information has become more 'efficient'. Just read the privacy policy of McAfee. Somewhere on the internet it's mentioned as an example of a bad/poor privacy policy.

The old version did allow Doubleclick cookies on my system, but no longer with this new version, and given the 'relationship' with Doubleclick I can't believe they just stopped exchanging information ! (Btw, Doubleclick also is said to track users' IP, see Wikipedia, so just getting rid of McAfee may be too late !)

I have other security software, and before I got the 2008 version of McAfee those programs regulary detected and deleted tracking cookies. It's unusual now. What's really going on ? Is information being shared with many partners without using cookies, or is information being shared with just a few partners, and are the other cookies prevented from being installed ?

Anyway, I recommend you read McAfee's privacy policy (I am not sure if it differs from country to country).

By my book, McAfee itself is spyware ! I'm sorry I bought it. Google, McAfee, datamining, commercially and by the State, I never expected to live in this Orwellian world.

(Btw, although the option to scan for tracking cookies appears to be available, no such scan takes place!)

 

All cookies except those needed for accessing necessary websites can be blocked in IE 7, Firefox and Opera...

 

In a way, yes, but that requires blocking all direct and indirect cookies, and creating exceptions for certain websites. And I'm not sure whether that would always work.

 

Comes as OEM installs on many new PCs. It's amazing how much quicker PCs run when I uninstall it and put on another product.

 

100000% agreed mcafee is a pig when it comes to resources

 

I've had no problem doing this with Firefox, I either block cookies, allow temporarily or allow full time based on the browser prompts...

 

this thread should be closed they are comparing AV's

 

Hi,

Would you mind telling me how big is that McAfee resource pig ? My friend whose McAfee total protection I assisted installed reports no slowdown whatsoever on his intel duo 2 core processor, winXp sp2, 1 gb RAM. Just wonder. Take care.

 

I am testing the Total Protection software now, and it runs very fast with Viruscan 12 as its AV base. The other features are nice, but I'm not sure how they are impacting my system (Dual Core 6600 w/3G RAM Win XP Pro SP2). The anti-spam claims that it sends all "spam" messages caught by the user (not by the program) to McAfee for analysis and possible inclusion into their spam database.

There's a great flexibility in individual module settings, although I'm not sure exactly what performance "hits" might occur when one drifts away from the installation defaults and travels into "more secure" choices.

I'm keeping it on the computer for now. With a 3-computer license, one has the luxury of adding two more copies to other systems, if so configured.

An especially nice feature, not unique to McAfee, is the abilty to turn a feature completely off and to tell the program not to nag you because of your decision.

Well, my two fingers are tired from typing, so I'll relent.

Regards,
Jim

 

Just a little addition to the privacy aspect of using McAfee:

One cookie that I used to detect with McAfee and other software was the 2O7 cookie (not207), related to Omniture.

No more, except with the online Ewido scan. The cookie was probably detected in the memory, temporary (internet?) files or the cache.

I did a little research online, and it turns out that Omniture has a 'relationship' with Doubleclick. (Which has a 'relationship' with McAfee)

I just wanted to add that little note.

 

~Snip~.. but i can say it was using a bit more than 65-70mb total at idle this would rise while using anything in the program, and things got slow all the way around. especially web browsing, and startup. also while we scanned with it it used almost 70-90% cpu even when set to a lower setting.. there was also a ton of things imo we will never need to use and when we shut them down in the program we still saw usage in the task manager from them even though it was very small...~Snip~ but mcafee slowed everything down imo i like it when it feels like there is no extra program even installed at all. ~Snip~

 

I have run McAfee Total protection, McAfee internet security and Virusscan Plus and have never had a slow down problem and have not seen it being a resource hog.

I am running an AMD Sempron 64 3200+ 1250MBs of ram. I have run them on XP and Vista except for total protection which I only ran ON XP Pro

 

McAfee can be a resource hog (according to my own experience and the experience of others), but that depends at least partially on what McAfee product you have, what other programs -security and others- you run, whether you allow a lot of programs/BHO's and such to load when you boot the computer (you can get rid of a lot of clutter by using Hijackthis, but that is not for novice users), and your computer system. 1250 MB RAM, as mentioned by the previous poster, should be enough for A LOT.

 

mcafee is not a resource hog, far from it.

the only slowdown is their splash screen which is a little slow and jerky, but once its popped up and gone away, there is no slowdowns.

 

If memory serves me right (a little computer humor yuk-yuk-yuk) that splash screen can be clicked off somewhere in the security center settings...