VirusScan 2006 10.0 (Full Product)

Reviewed by: olddave208

01-16-07

Duration of ownership: 4 Years

Strengths: In over 4 years of usage, I have never had a virus on my system. Protection is great, but one does have to keep up with updates. Runs well with zonealarm and spysweeper.

Weaknesses: Software is heavy on system resources. When starting my machine every day one must wait till the software does its update thing, or system hangs could result. Would not use on systems with low ram. On rare occasions software gets confused or files get corrupted requiring uninstalling and reinstalling the software. This problem has occured about 3 times, usually after major upgrades to the program.

Overall Evaluation: I have found the software to work well with my spyware and firewall. If running zonealarm with the full version one must tell software so it knows to turn off the Mcafee firewall. I have little faith in the Mcafee firewall. Scans do take a while to run. My system is about 60,000 files which requires about 1.5 hours to scan. Very few false warnings on viruses. In 4 years I have never had a virus on either of my XP machines. I would recommend to anyone over norton. I have worked on norton protected machines, and could not believe the system intrusion and resources used. One must follow instructions VERY carefully on initial load of software to get a good load. If this software does not run properly, it is usually inexperience of the person that creates problems. I consider support nonexistant, so if you are not computer savvy don't purchase Mcafee.

Reviewed by: Phenom

10-13-06

Duration of ownership: 2 Months

Strengths: Blocks Viruses, Trojans, and Spyware (PUP).

Weaknesses: None.

Overall Evaluation:

Reviewed by: PcworldJim

09-11-06

Duration of ownership: 2 Months

Strengths: super fair piece of software

Weaknesses: not as good as one would hope

Overall Evaluation: it was fair, but not good.

Reviewed by: Prevaricator

09-07-06

Duration of ownership: 1 Years

Strengths: None noted.

Weaknesses: Incredibly difficult to get support; could not install properly. Poor interfaces lack necessary information.

Overall Evaluation: Trying this program was a complete waste of time. After initial installation and download of updates, the program kept telling me that I was “not protected,” and to click ‘Fix’ to solve the problem. The resulting dialogue box told me I needed to make "responses" but without indication as to ‘what’ or ‘where.’ The box boasts of live chat support, but I had to jump through ½ hour of hoops on the web page in order to reach a point that I could activate the chat. Once activated, it took another ½ hour for a tech to respond. The resulting chat indicated to me that the tech was not understanding the problem and could only suggest uninstalling and re-installing the program. I can’t tell how well the program works, but I’m glad I found out quickly that their support is so ‘bottom rung’ before a real problem occurred. At least now I can get a refund.

Reviewed by: davel

08-15-06

Duration of ownership: 8 Years

Strengths: McAfee runs a very good library of threats, updated continuously, and updaes are as frequent as needed.

Weaknesses: This software's latest update prevents running pretty much ANY other firewall or spamware program, repeatedly accesses the internet regardless of your settings, and does not ALLOW you to stop it. They have recently made their update LOCKED in Windows, so you either allow it or NOTHING runs! The software makes an incredibly long list of registry entries, all of which must be loaded, slowing all other applications. The recent update runs programs on your cpmputer without permission, causing serious problems. That sounds like a virus itself to me. The company has apparently decided that they cannot compete with others such as Lavasoft, so they'll simply prevent the programs from running.

Overall Evaluation: I personally feel that the company fully deserves to go out of business, and soon. Forget how the anti-virus program works and concentrate on the company's policies, which are underhanded and counter-competitive like Microsoft's in it's worst days. Their firewall is a memory hog beyond belief, and simply doesn't work well. I have no experience with their SPAMware program, but I would not expect that it could approach the competition. I think that action is required to let them and others know that their behavior is far beyond acceptable.

Reviewed by: soaraway

08-12-06

Duration of ownership: 6 Months

Strengths: works good - when it functions, daily updates may screw up your system without warning

Weaknesses: VERY POOR customer service option cost ($US) results one item telephone 40 poor time telephone $3/minute $$$$$$ 24hr echat free waste of time online forum free good but SLOW

Overall Evaluation: As a long term (10 year) user of McAfee, I've had a love/hate experience with McAfee products. The products work well when they function. My email function has been broken eight times in the past two years by routine updates. This company does not care about customer (DIS)satifaction

Reviewed by: mm100

Updated: 16-Mar-07

Strengths: No problems installing. Not too slow starting up. Reliable virus scan company.

Weaknesses:

Overall Evaluation: Had McAfee last year and was happy. Then they renewed me for $40. Too expensive. I found this from a PriceGrabber storefront for $10. You would think McAfee would come down on their price to keep a customer, but nope. Anyway, good virus scan product.

Reviewed by: hploss

Updated: 13-Dec-06

Strengths: Cheap, one year updates.

Weaknesses: Freezes my system. Reports worms that don't exist on Email sending of worksheet, but can verify or find these worms on scan.

Overall Evaluation: Very Cumbersome. Hogs a lot of memory and computing capcity. A disappointment compared with Norton. Have Norton Works on my system, and have trouble fully disabling Norton Virus and still keep rest of Works.

Reviewed by: randyfaerber

Updated: 26-May-06

Strengths: Best anti-virus product available with the least problems and hassles. You can just forget about it once it's installed.

Weaknesses: Install requires 3 or 4 system re-boots. After than, you're OK.

Overall Evaluation: Been using McAfee anti-virus products for years. Wouldn't consider anything else for virus detection and fixing. With the auto-updating, both the software and the virus list take care of themselves.

Reviewed by: smittyz

Updated: 26-Jan-06

Strengths: Easy installation, Found numerous Trojans on my system

Weaknesses: First scan took over 45 minutes. You only get one year of updates with purchase - this applies to the retail box version also.

Overall Evaluation: As usual, Mcafee comes out with a great product. There is no difference between the OEM version and the retail box version - other than $32.00 price difference. This is my third year using VirusScan and I have yet to have any problems with Mcafee conflicting with other software on my system.