BEWARE of the McAFEE MONSTER!

[Howard Davis]

I have McAfee Security Center and Virus Scan 10. My OS is Win XP. My
computer was unacceptably slowed by the McAfee software, but
changing several settings under "services" helped. The frequent
automatic updating and sweeps however were still unacceptably
detrimental to computer speed, especially on bootup.

Several days ago Virus Scan apparently stopped working. I got a
window stating that the version installed was incompatible with my
OS, and advising to uninstall, reboot, and reinstall. I did this,
which required a new download. After all that I STILL got the same
incompatibility notice.

I went to the McAfee tech support website, installed and ran their
Virtual Technician, and was told thereby that there is no problem!

I found some information on the website that, though inaccurate,
allowed me to fix the incompatibility notice problem - but other
problems still exist.

While the program now appears to be running - downloading updates,
sweeping, etc., when I try to open it via the taskbar icon or
desktop shortcut all I get is a Security Center window "gathering
your protection status" covering most of the desktop, and I cannot
get rid of it without rebooting. I also have a yellow taskbar icon
indicating the computer is not protected, and like the window, it is
unresponsive.

Hours of my time have been wasted, and I am FED UP with the ongoing,
from day one, poor performance of McAfee software! The McAfee tech
support website is a waste of time unless you want to PAY for
support - it does not allow emailing them, the chat is difficult to
conduct, and I've found it totally frustrating. McAfee's refund
policy is that if one month has passed since your purchase, screw
you!

Looks like I'll have to uninstall this McAfee monster and go for
Grisoft. From experience, I also have a pretty low opinion of
Symantec/Norton.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Buffalo]

Well, I have Win98SE and I tried the McAfee offered by comcast.net as part of
their package.
I had uninstalled NSW2003Pro and then installed McAfee.
Other than the very bothersome updates that required a reboot to take effect, I
thought it did OK.
Then, while running a program and then taken out of it by a McAfee udate in
progress, my program froze and I had to do a hard reboot.
(yes, I even tried a ctrl-alt-del to no avail).
Well, I then lost everything in my Inbox and other stuff.
I continued to use McAfee and I have had nothing but problems with it.
Other McAfee updates would fail and I would have to manually update McAfee and
then it would just reinstall itself over itself.
Perhaps it doesn't work with Win98SE, but i didn't see anything that stated
that.
It caused a lot of problems with my system and I lost a lot of data.
I then uninstalled McAfee and installed AVG free version a few weeks ago.
Much happier.

 

[Pete]

McAfee, Norton, and worst of all Panda, are known for unacceptable
consequences. Operational speed being the most common complaint. I'd suggest
you give Kaspersky or NOD32 by Eset a try.
Best,
-Pete

 

[Debris]

See my earlier post (11/17) "Alternatives to McAfee / Norton."

Installed Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 this past weekend. Choice was
based on online reviews and advice from posters on this group.

So far, no issues encountered. Maybe uses a tad more memory than I would
like, but far, far less than the McAfee bloatware. Other issue was with the
McAfee firewall. Again, no issues with Kaspersky's firewall.

Speaking of McAfee, I'm tempted to reinstall it -- just for the satisfaction
of deleting it again. (Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

D

 

[Otto Sykora]

I still use Mcafee on my dual boot sytsem of w98se and w2k.
On w2k it somehow still works, the updates by manualy executing
sdatXXXX do work.

The same version is on the w98se partiton. Here no update file works
since the introduction of the new engine 5.1
I have copied the engine files manualy, but still the update files
refuse to update the w98se version.

Found now, in the installation script within the update file, the w98
part is simply comented out.

Unfortunately I have no clue how to pack the sdat file again after
modification of the script, so will have to update all manualy from
now. This is pain, since one has to stop the service, probably reboot
first then copy all files and start the service again and probably
reboot again.