McAfee AV...poor results.

[mit74]

After a year of testing and selling AVs I can say the worst is by far McAfee. It's pretty poor for a market leader. I'm constantly having problems trying to install and activate the thing and uninstalling sometimes requires you to have to download a special tool to get rid of it.

But by far the worst and for me the reason it's top dog in crapness (now above norton) is that I just had a laptop that ran without AV for 2 years and they were having multiple problems with it. First scan was done with McAfee it didn't pick up a single virus or trojan which I knew wasn't right at there was definately a DNS virus in IE7 and a fake IE trojan alert was flashing up every 5 minutes. A scan with MBytes picked up 70 torjans/viruses, followed by SAS which picked up a further 20. Kaspersky then immediately picked up some serious rootkits and a further 20 (over 100 in total as many were in the system restores). Another full scan on mbytes and SAS picked up a couple more each.
All these were pretty serious trojans and many found in the system restore which meant some were several months old. I'm pretty appalled that Mcafee didn't pick up a single one on a full scan. I've long suspected Mcafee to be below par and now there's proof. The only thing in Mcafee defence is perhaps a virus was stopping any detection but the sheer amount of viruses would have meant it at least caught something.

Anyone else have problems with Mcafee? I think I'm going to stop selling it as I don't like selling products that are poor quality.

 

[DesignerNick]

I have used ESET NOD32 for a couple of years. McAfee and Norton are way to resource hungry.

 

[CSHTech]

Anyone else have problems with Mcafee? I think I'm going to stop selling it as I don't like selling products that are poor quality.

I stopped selling McAfee some time ago - it's as if McAfee have rested on their laurels and expected turnover through the lock-in deals they have with PC manufacturers. Similarly I no longer stock Norton for similar reasons, even their latest trade literature refers to the fact that the product had problems.

I'm currently concentrating on the Kaspersky products - a big thumbs up from my clients for a couple of years now......

 

[mit74]

Kaspersky pretty good now although they won't allow you to run any other security software with theirs which is very annoying especially as their firewall isn't very good.

 

[deniser]

Huge problems with the fact that I added McAfee on 3 PCs when it came to renew the subscription. First, I responded to their email offering renewal at half price for renewing a month early but it then didn't update properly and I spent days on the helpline getting it uninstalled and reinstalled fixing lots of problems along the way. That was on one PC only, the other two have unprotected warnings flash up constantly. They then took double the money from my card a month later to supposedly pay for the renewal which I had already paid for under their special offer. I can't get any response from them, there is 20-30 minutes hold on the phone, I am locked out of my account online for no reason and now having to do a claim with my card company for unauthorised payment. Have spent days trying to resolve this mess.

On Norton 60 day trial for my 4th PC. McAfee, never again. I have a McAfee lifetime auto update on a 5th PC which is still going strong after about 8 years! That was a good product!

 

[mit74]

Huge problems with the fact that I added McAfee on 3 PCs when it came to renew the subscription. First, I responded to their email offering renewal at half price for renewing a month early but it then didn't update properly and I spent days on the helpline getting it uninstalled and reinstalled fixing lots of problems along the way. That was on one PC only, the other two have unprotected warnings flash up constantly. They then took double the money from my card a month later to supposedly pay for the renewal which I had already paid for under their special offer. I can't get any response from them, there is 20-30 minutes hold on the phone, I am locked out of my account online for no reason and now having to do a claim with my card company for unauthorised payment. Have spent days trying to resolve this mess.

On Norton 60 day trial for my 4th PC. McAfee, never again. I have a McAfee lifetime auto update on a 5th PC which is still going strong after about 8 years! That was a good product!

1. Never ever buy online direct from the AV company. They rip you off big time. If you purchase an OEM disc from amazon it can be 200% cheaper (yes really). OEM is the no frills no fancy packaging version that computer builders buy. It's the same product but considerably cheaper.

2. Don't go with Norton they are just as bad. I recommend Kaspersky, NOD32 or AVG. Also use the free malware bytes and super antispyware.

 

[calibra]

I use to be a big McAfee fan, rolling out their larger products such as EPO.

Over recent years, their products seem buggy and the A/V doesn't pick much up.

I found Microsofts free solution to be much better at picking out virus'

James

 

[Doug]

I had exactly the same issue on home laptop, had mcaffee, got a virus and it wouldnt pick it up at all whereas MWbytes would. I use AVG now at home and have had no issues at all!

We sell Trend as we find that to be the best offering for SMEs. It has various options too such as hosted versions and a new email security option which is comparable to messagelabs, although it is much less costly.

 

[andy@telecomhelpcouk]

I couldn't agree more that McAfee is poor. I've used Avira free & paid versions for years without any problems. I install VoIP systems that really don't like Firewalls and AV - Avira seems to be the best for me.

On a tangent, I'm waiting for the new 'soft' firewall products that are coming soon. I understand them to be chip based systems giving individual packet inspection so no dedicated firewall box needed. I know it happens on high end kit now, but I've heard it will be ubiquitous in a year or two.

Andy

 

[raff.me]

+1 for Avira.

I guess some of the big names are a perfect example that you don't need a good product, anything can be sold - it's just up to the marketing.

 

[pchealer]

Try Microsoft Security Essentials

 

[lucyrussell]

Kaspersky is definitely the best antivirus solution

 

[pchealer]

It's good but its not free

 

[CSHTech]

...but free isn't necessarily the best......

 

[lucyrussell]

Do you know that antivirus companies create the viruses just to sell their products?

 

[pchealer]

Do you know that antivirus companies create the viruses just to sell their products?

Do you have any proof of this?

 

[lucyrussell]

The antivirus companies want you to think you are screwed without them so they can sell more viruses. They have financially motivated means to keep you with their software.

 

[pchealer]

...but free isn't necessarily the best......

Agreed just a recommendation out of interest people might want to check out www.av-comparatvies.org they compare different antivirus products on different things like false detections.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_aug2010.pdf

Surprisingly Microsoft and Kaspersky aren't the best in there opinion one of the Advanced + is ESET NOD32 another good paid for product if your willing to pay.

 

[mit74]

What I would really love to do if I ever had the time is when I get an infected computer (which is alot) is to add the files to one big image/OS and test annually how effective AVs are at picking up all the viruses. It would be a good indication on their effectiveness on known viruses/trojans.