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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 27 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 47 found the following review helpful:
Staying with Symantec Nov 30, 2003
By Ed R. MY SYSTEM: ========== AMD Athlon 1.4(overclocked to 1.5) Asus A7V333 Mobo Corsair 512MB PC2700CAS2 DDR Windows XP Professional SP1INTRO: ====== I'd been using Norton Internet Security 2003 for over a year, but my subscription ran out. I have been reading such horror stories about the 2004 version and it's activation woes, that I decided to return to McAfee for a try. After just week, I've decided that one product truly stands out above the other. Mind you, I'm not happy about any software company using the activation process, so I really did want to like the McAfee offering. So what happened? Security Center Screenshot: =========================== http://images.mcafee.com/common/screenshots/msc_vso_696x540.gif THE GOOD: ========= * Easy installation * Easy automatic product update * Nice looking interface and icons * Inexpensive (though, with rebates, YMMV) THE BAD & THE UGLY: =================== * You cannot uninstall McAfee Security Center and cannot use VirusScan without it. * McAfee seems too desperate with their attempt to integrate all of their products into their McAfee Security Center. They have a security "index" in which they attempt to make the user aware of how secure they are. But the indexes are skewed and I believe they are trying to breed fear into the user to get the user to purchase their other products. Even though you may only have installed VirusScan and Personal Firewall, the Security Center still shows Privacy Service and SpamKiller tabs. Any curious joe would wonder what were in those other tabs. And the curious joe would find offers for 30-day trials on those other products. Once you install the trials, your security index miraculously improves. * Though the GUI is nice and pretty, it's slow and painfully unintuitive. * Start-up splash screen cannot be disabled. * I'm unsure which of the two is the culprit, but either VirusScan or Personal Firewall seriously slowed up my web browsing with Internet Explorer 6.0. Once I uninstalled them both, IE6 was back to normal. I would guess Personal Firewall caused this with some proxy issue. * VirusScan does not provide time stats on how long a full system scan takes. I find Norton's stats to be useful for when I want to fire up a manual scan and know when I can come back to the computer. SUMMARY: ======== What I was hoping for was an efficient software product to protect my computer from viruses and trojan horses. What I found was that while it did protect my computer, it did it in a way that was not very efficient. As I said, I despise activation schemes from software companies, but I despise ad-laden software even more. If I'm paying for a product, I expect not to have to see any ads, PERIOD. I personally would recommend Symantec's line of security products over McAfee's. However, you can decide yourself. Both Symantec and McAfee have 15-day trial periods for virus software and I believe both do as well for their firewall products.
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
McAfee creates pop-up nightmare Mar 19, 2004
By Florida
"merbine"
Be forewarned that once your year's worth of free updating of virus files expires, McAfee ironically begins popping up repeat windows warning you of impending expiration, and then expiration, and this continues and even presents multiple pop-ups during one session. I've written them repeatedly and you might as well contact the Great Wall. I hate to switch but any company that does that to a paid customer exhibits brazen insensitivity to the whole spam nightmare. They're not the same company I thought they were, apparently.
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
You are now UNDER MY SPELL!!!! Mar 02, 2004
By Karl Pinto
"KP"
This is horrible. I have been a user of McAfee products for the last 6 years now and have been reasonably happy. Until I bought this piece of junk (yes, I'm seldom this vociferous about my feelings for software). Anyway, in the past one of the things I liked about VirusScan was that it kept me, the user, in control of things. I bought VirusScan and ONLY used VirusScan. I disabled all the other fancies McAfee shipped with the product since I did not need them. NOW with VirusScan 8, I cannot uninstall (or even disable) Security Center. It runs and tells me things I am not interested in, takes up PC resources and pops things up when I least need them. I also tried to modify my update options to "manual" instead of automatic, but the software does not update DATs manually (gives some Registry Read error). Its as if they have got me under their spell (in keeping with the "Lord of the Rings") Anyway, this is the LAST McAfee product I am getting and I highly recommend you buy a Symantec product instead. Since I last wrote this, I discovered another abomination from McAfee Support itself. Even though there is an option for "manual update", one cannot actually update the DATs manually. One HAS to do so automatically via Security Center. So after one year, one HAS to buy another subscription to McAfee if one is to remain protected from viruses. Hope this helps.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
I've never been so disappointed Mar 09, 2004
By B. Goodwin
"bhg"
I purchased this product and then had trouble installing it. I called the customer service line only to find that for technical assistance you must call a 900 number and pay $2.95 per minute. Then I decided to call the non-tecnical customer service line where I waited for more than an hour before handing up. Competition in this area is limited, but next itme, I'll find it!
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Nice software!!!!! Dec 31, 2003
I had Norton anti-virus before I got this. Mcafee picked up twelve different spyware programs in my computer,where as the Norton anti-virus never picked them up at all. Then I was able to delete and quarentine them.Wonderful-only problem I have is with the rebate form.You"ll see what I mean.
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