Why So Many Criticisms of McAfee?

[Shannon]

I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this doesn't
start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many criticisms of
McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums. I'm
so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always come
back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Here's how I use McAfee.

My family has been running McAfee VirusScan (online subscription) for
about three years, on multiple pcs, under varying Windows OS's (XPPro,
XPHome, 2KPro, and Win98SE). These pcs are used by adults, college
students, high school students, and formerly junior high students. For
the most part, they practice safe computing the best they know how. Some
are better at it than others.

I don't use any other McAfee products, such as their firewall or anti-
spam programs. Just the VirusScan. It is set to do real time scanning,
an automatic full scan weekly (at night), and automatically download and
install updates. I don't scan outbound emails. It's currently on build
10.0.25, engine 4400, and Dat version 4569, dated today, 8/29/05. While
in real-time mode, I don't notice any system lag. If I perform an on-
demand scan, there is system lag, but bearable.

What I want in an anti-virus program is one that doesn't take up system
resources, that's easy to configure, even if only moderatley
configurable, that does real-time, scheduled, and on-demand scanning.
Most importantly, I want it to be effective. McAfee seems to do this for
me.

I don't care about customer support (McAfee's is attrocious, whether
online, email, or on their forum - I haven't bothered for years), since I
get mine from folks like you. I don't care that the McAfee Security
Center tells me that I need their products; I can ignore that.

On occasion, free online scans are performed on all pcs, using Panda,
Trend, BitDefender, or RAV. No infections are found.

All pcs are also scanned with AdAware SE Personal and Spybot Search and
Destroy, both of which rarely finds any 'critical objects'. I don't use
the Spybot Immunize feature. I haven't used used Microsoft's Anti-
Spyware yet, but plan to give it a try at home. Does it slow a pc?

HijackThis is run occasionally on all pcs, and I can interpret the log
files, which very rarely show anything that needs attention.

I've tried Norton, CA eTrust, NOD32, and Avast!, but haven't found a
reason to change. I've got renewals on all pcs coming up in a couple of
months, but I am not going to renew, primarily because I am with Comcast,
and if I choose to stay with McAfee, Comcast subscribers can get McAfee
for free. Do you know if the entire McAfee suite has to be installed, or
can one install just the anti-virus?

Any comments are really appreciated.

Shannon

 

[Mike]

I work for a large public organisation, we have a license for
Enterprise-8.0i we also had licenses for Ent-7.0, 7.1.
The main problems I found were upgrading and setting up.
To upgrade you must uninstall the old version, restart and install the
new version. Do NOT install over the top of the previous version.

Ensure scan all discs when idle is not scheduled.

I have Ent-8.0i set to scan just about everything and auto update on a
daily basis.

I've also beta tested their new engine(5000), it appears marginally
faster than the present 4400.

All things considered I'm quite happy with the McAfee product and would
recommend it to anyone.

Regards

Mike

 

[Clive]

I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this doesn't
start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many criticisms of
McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums. I'm
so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always come
back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Here's how I use McAfee.

My family has been running McAfee VirusScan (online subscription) for
about three years, on multiple pcs, under varying Windows OS's (XPPro,
XPHome, 2KPro, and Win98SE). These pcs are used by adults, college
students, high school students, and formerly junior high students. For
the most part, they practice safe computing the best they know how. Some
are better at it than others.

I don't use any other McAfee products, such as their firewall or anti-
spam programs. Just the VirusScan. It is set to do real time scanning,
an automatic full scan weekly (at night), and automatically download and
install updates. I don't scan outbound emails. It's currently on build
10.0.25, engine 4400, and Dat version 4569, dated today, 8/29/05. While
in real-time mode, I don't notice any system lag. If I perform an on-
demand scan, there is system lag, but bearable.

What I want in an anti-virus program is one that doesn't take up system
resources, that's easy to configure, even if only moderatley
configurable, that does real-time, scheduled, and on-demand scanning.
Most importantly, I want it to be effective. McAfee seems to do this for
me.

I don't care about customer support (McAfee's is attrocious, whether
online, email, or on their forum - I haven't bothered for years), since I
get mine from folks like you. I don't care that the McAfee Security
Center tells me that I need their products; I can ignore that.

On occasion, free online scans are performed on all pcs, using Panda,
Trend, BitDefender, or RAV. No infections are found.

All pcs are also scanned with AdAware SE Personal and Spybot Search and
Destroy, both of which rarely finds any 'critical objects'. I don't use
the Spybot Immunize feature. I haven't used used Microsoft's Anti-
Spyware yet, but plan to give it a try at home. Does it slow a pc?

HijackThis is run occasionally on all pcs, and I can interpret the log
files, which very rarely show anything that needs attention.

I've tried Norton, CA eTrust, NOD32, and Avast!, but haven't found a
reason to change. I've got renewals on all pcs coming up in a couple of
months, but I am not going to renew, primarily because I am with Comcast,
and if I choose to stay with McAfee, Comcast subscribers can get McAfee
for free. Do you know if the entire McAfee suite has to be installed, or
can one install just the anti-virus?

Any comments are really appreciated.

Shannon

I've tried Mcafee several times and always ended up removing it.

Main problems;

Eats system resources - even worse that KAV
A lot of other AV's out there are much better at detection/removal.
Price

I noticed Hotmail dumped Mcafee for Trend. I work for a big corporate
company and they did the same.

Clive

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Shannon" <[email protected]>

| I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this doesn't
| start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many criticisms of
| McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums. I'm
| so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
| comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always come
| back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Here's how I use McAfee.
|
| My family has been running McAfee VirusScan (online subscription) for
| about three years, on multiple pcs, under varying Windows OS's (XPPro,
| XPHome, 2KPro, and Win98SE). These pcs are used by adults, college
| students, high school students, and formerly junior high students. For
| the most part, they practice safe computing the best they know how. Some
| are better at it than others.
|
| I don't use any other McAfee products, such as their firewall or anti-
| spam programs. Just the VirusScan. It is set to do real time scanning,
| an automatic full scan weekly (at night), and automatically download and
| install updates. I don't scan outbound emails. It's currently on build
| 10.0.25, engine 4400, and Dat version 4569, dated today, 8/29/05. While
| in real-time mode, I don't notice any system lag. If I perform an on-
| demand scan, there is system lag, but bearable.
|
| What I want in an anti-virus program is one that doesn't take up system
| resources, that's easy to configure, even if only moderatley
| configurable, that does real-time, scheduled, and on-demand scanning.
| Most importantly, I want it to be effective. McAfee seems to do this for
| me.
|
| I don't care about customer support (McAfee's is attrocious, whether
| online, email, or on their forum - I haven't bothered for years), since I
| get mine from folks like you. I don't care that the McAfee Security
| Center tells me that I need their products; I can ignore that.
|
| On occasion, free online scans are performed on all pcs, using Panda,
| Trend, BitDefender, or RAV. No infections are found.
|
| All pcs are also scanned with AdAware SE Personal and Spybot Search and
| Destroy, both of which rarely finds any 'critical objects'. I don't use
| the Spybot Immunize feature. I haven't used used Microsoft's Anti-
| Spyware yet, but plan to give it a try at home. Does it slow a pc?
|
| HijackThis is run occasionally on all pcs, and I can interpret the log
| files, which very rarely show anything that needs attention.
|
| I've tried Norton, CA eTrust, NOD32, and Avast!, but haven't found a
| reason to change. I've got renewals on all pcs coming up in a couple of
| months, but I am not going to renew, primarily because I am with Comcast,
| and if I choose to stay with McAfee, Comcast subscribers can get McAfee
| for free. Do you know if the entire McAfee suite has to be installed, or
| can one install just the anti-virus?
|
| Any comments are really appreciated.
|
| Shannon

Shannon:

The retail version has a lousy registration process and frustrates many users. It is also
dependant upon IE and is not really configurable. This causes dissatifaction amongst users.

The Enterprise versions don't have a registration process and are highly configurable and
reliable. Therefore there are less complaints.

In addition the average to below average computer user will tend to use the reatail products
and their problems may stem for all sorts of reasons such as PC instability and lack of
computer knowledge laeding to an indictment on McAfee AV software in general.

 

[Ron Lopshire]

I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this doesn't
start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many criticisms of
McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums. I'm
so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always come
back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

SNIP

Any comments are really appreciated.

Shannon

Hi Shannon,

Here is my 0.02 on the subject. Following this discussion for a few
months now, here are few things I have gleaned:

1) In this NG, most people who opt for free AV use Avast or AVG.
2) In this NG, many, if not most, people who pay for AV use NOD32 or KAV.
3) Many people who use Norton or McAfee have never used anything else,
because their AV was OEM, or like you, came with their ISP.

I dumped Norton when it locked up my new computer while updating the OEM
version two weeks after I bought it. I have used AVG and McAfee (on
another system), and I now use KAV and love it.

Check these out:

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

http://www.av-test.org/

At least you use McAfee for a good reason, and not because you have
never used anything else.

Ron

 

[* * Chas]

| Shannon wrote:
| > I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this
doesn't
| > start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many
criticisms of
| > McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums.
I'm
| > so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
| > comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always
come
| > back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
| >
| > SNIP
| >
| > Any comments are really appreciated.
| >
| > Shannon
|
| Hi Shannon,
|
| Here is my 0.02 on the subject. Following this discussion for a few
| months now, here are few things I have gleaned:
|
| 1) In this NG, most people who opt for free AV use Avast or AVG.
| 2) In this NG, many, if not most, people who pay for AV use NOD32 or
KAV.
| 3) Many people who use Norton or McAfee have never used anything else,
| because their AV was OEM, or like you, came with their ISP.
|
| I dumped Norton when it locked up my new computer while updating the
OEM
| version two weeks after I bought it. I have used AVG and McAfee (on
| another system), and I now use KAV and love it.
|
| Check these out:
|
| http://www.av-comparatives.org/
|
| http://www.av-test.org/
|
| At least you use McAfee for a good reason, and not because you have
| never used anything else.
|
| Ron

Interesting observations.... That's pretty much what I've seen also.
I've tried or used over 20 different AV products. I'm currently run
NOD32 with F-Prot as a backup.

Chas.

 

[Anthony]

I suspect that hotmail's decision was purely cost driven. In my experience
McAfee has far better detection than trend. Remember, a few years ago McAfee
acquired Dr. Solomon's. They picked up some serious expertise in that
transaction.

 

[* * Chas]

| I suspect that hotmail's decision was purely cost driven. In my
experience
| McAfee has far better detection than trend. Remember, a few years ago
McAfee
| acquired Dr. Solomon's. They picked up some serious expertise in that
| transaction.

And trashed one of the best AV products ever!

I used DSAVTK from 1995 until the bitter end.

Chas.

 

[Ken Weiss]

And trashed one of the best AV products ever!
I used DSAVTK from 1995 until the bitter end.

Ah, the good Dr.! I too used DSAVTK to the bitter end at about the
same time frame as you. I backed it up with AVP 3.x, and felt pretty
damned safe. I was truly POd when I found out about McAfee's
acquisition of it. The thing with McAfee now is that it is a very
fine A/V engine wrapped in a turd.

KW

 

[Peter]

I've been wanting to ask this for a long time, and I hope this doesn't
start a firestorm, but I'm curious as to why I see so many criticisms of
McAfee (non-Enterprise) on these two newsgroups, and in some forums. I'm
so often tempted to switch to another anti-virus program, because of
comments from those I respect on these two newsgroups, but I always come
back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Here's how I use McAfee.

My ISP gave me a free McAfee Firewall and antivirus. I was pretty
content with it, until...
A few weeks ago the firewall stopped working. That's to say: all
outbound traffic could pass. It appeared to work, gave no warning,
nothing, just let everything pass. I've quite a lot of protection, it
was absolutely no malware. Just because I did a routine-check I noticed
it.
A firewall that just seems to work and does nothing is completely
worthless and dangerous, in my opinion. So I quit the firewall.

About the antivirus: updating goes very well, and very often. But at the
moment I'm trying out a new free anti-intrusion program (All-Seeing Eye,
first impression is pretty good). I put the protection rather strong to
test it.
Part of it is watching folders and files for any change, so it opens
files all the time. No problem, doesn't take too much resources. But
that crazy scanner of McAfee runs behind All-Seeing Eye like it's some
kind of Al Capone with a secret master-virus. Every file All-Seeing Eye
opens, doesn't matter what kind, gets completely scanned, byte for byte,
by McAfee's On-Access scanner. And you can't change the settings: there
are none, just on or off. And that took about ten times as much
resources as All-Seeing Eye, it turned my computer in a snail. The
scanner used about ten times as much cpu-time as All-Seeing Eye did.
Bye scanner. Now I have Avast running, takes also some resources, but
far less. Since I just installed that I have not yet an opinion on it,
but at least you can change a lot of settings
Peter

 

[* * Chas]

| On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 21:27:06 -0700, "* * Chas" <[email protected]>
| wrote:
|
| >And trashed one of the best AV products ever!
| >I used DSAVTK from 1995 until the bitter end.
|
| Ah, the good Dr.! I too used DSAVTK to the bitter end at about the
| same time frame as you. I backed it up with AVP 3.x, and felt pretty
| damned safe. I was truly POd when I found out about McAfee's
| acquisition of it. The thing with McAfee now is that it is a very
| fine A/V engine wrapped in a turd.
|
| KW

Well put! I still have the final cut of AVTK installed on one of my
Win98SE systems - for sentimental reasons. Using the Dr.'s heuristics,
it found a minor piece of malware that took several months before NAV,
KAV and F-Prot could detect it.

Chas.

 

[Ken Weiss]

Well put! I still have the final cut of AVTK installed on one of my
Win98SE systems - for sentimental reasons. Using the Dr.'s heuristics,
it found a minor piece of malware that took several months before NAV,
KAV and F-Prot could detect it.

It's really sad when a quality product like DSAVTK goes the way of the
corporate giant. Hell, the thing practically had cult status! These
forums were abuzz back then with friendly and helpful people giving
great advice and tips to the newbie. I'd sure like to see this
return, but Usenet in general seems to be fading into history.

KW

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Ken Weiss" <[email protected]>


|
| It's really sad when a quality product like DSAVTK goes the way of the
| corporate giant. Hell, the thing practically had cult status! These
| forums were abuzz back then with friendly and helpful people giving
| great advice and tips to the newbie. I'd sure like to see this
| return, but Usenet in general seems to be fading into history.
|
| KW

I know an ex-Dr. Solomon employee who was then on the McAfee ENGINE programming team. Since
then he has moved on to work for MessageLabs.

Dr. Solomon was absorbed into the McAfee software kernel. It is still there and as you have
noted, works great.

As I stated before, it is the retail version of the software that garners the most
complaints. The Enterprise/Corporate versions of the McAfee VirusScan software does not
garner the same level of complaints.

 

[Ken Weiss]

I know an ex-Dr. Solomon employee who was then on the McAfee ENGINE programming team. Since
then he has moved on to work for MessageLabs.

Dr. Solomon was absorbed into the McAfee software kernel. It is still there and as you have
noted, works great.

As I stated before, it is the retail version of the software that garners the most
complaints. The Enterprise/Corporate versions of the McAfee VirusScan software does not
garner the same level of complaints.

I realize that the consumer version is the one that garners (and
deservedly so, might I add) the most complaints. I've seen the
corporate version in action, and I think highly of it. Why McAfee
doesn't take that superior engine and wrap it in a slimmer ActiveX
independent interface I can't begin to imagine.

KW

 

[* * Chas]

| On Thu, 8 Sep 2005 21:46:37 -0700, "* * Chas" <[email protected]>
| wrote:
|
| >Well put! I still have the final cut of AVTK installed on one of my
| >Win98SE systems - for sentimental reasons. Using the Dr.'s
heuristics,
| >it found a minor piece of malware that took several months before
NAV,
| >KAV and F-Prot could detect it.
|
| It's really sad when a quality product like DSAVTK goes the way of the
| corporate giant. Hell, the thing practically had cult status! These
| forums were abuzz back then with friendly and helpful people giving
| great advice and tips to the newbie. I'd sure like to see this
| return, but Usenet in general seems to be fading into history.
|
| KW

I had corporate subscriptions for Win3x, Win95 and NT versions of
DSAVTK. I used to get stacks of floppies with every monthly update
before they went to CDs. I installed an update on Dec. 24, 1996. It had
a glitch and I called Dr. Solly's Tech Support on Xmas day 1996. They
walked me through the problem and I had an update sent to me overnight
and received it the next day!

The performance of NOD32 is close to AVTK.

Chas.