McAfee Free Antivirus Beta

McAfee? Nope, not even for free. I was hoping Intel would turn things around, but it's still a terrible antivirus.
 
AVG better and FREE

Avira better and also FREE

Kaspersky free after mail in rebates maximum pwnage :D
 
Microsoft Security Essentials is better than McAfee, and that comes with Windows now.

McAfee & Norton Antivirus are garbage!
 
McAfee is still pretty big in the corporate world. It's just like in the old days, nobody got fired for buying IBM hardware.
 
Steve said:
Call me cynical but isn't antivirus the last thing you want to be beta testing? That's like beta testing condoms. :eek:
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Don't they all have beta programs? I'm not sure how risky it is. It's probably not worth expending a lot of effort attacking a beta product, since few use it and doing so may tip them off to potential exploits.

Personally, I'm more wary of running beta backup software, but I guess you generally don't run either on production systems.
 
Oh I don't know, looks to me like Windows 10 is still in Beta, why not a matching Anti Virus?;)
 
Nope, No McAfee Beta, No McAfee Paid, No MacAfee Free with rebate.
It comes pre-installed on most Dell's and I get paid remove it and install anything better.
I only recommend Avira/AVG (free or paid), Kaspersky or Norton.

Once top rated, I would stay away from Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender, Microsoft has really dropped the ball.
 
Pass, both Norton and McAfee ceased being competitive products back around the year 2000 and just got slower, more intrusive and less usable ever since.
 
Crosshairs said:
I was going to ask if McAfee still sucked....looks like I got my answer
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But someone said Norton sucks too which is not true so you should do your own investigating instead of relying on forum posts. Norton did suck...ten years ago.
 
I used to work at McAfee (internship) and I can confirm that McAfee sucks.
 
rezerekted said:
But someone said Norton sucks too which is not true so you should do your own investigating instead of relying on forum posts. Norton did suck...ten years ago.
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The package of junk they install alongside their AV still sucks. In the past month I have had three different clients have computers borked by Norton program updates. In each case an update managed to quietly break the OS whilst the Norton software claimed all was fine. This lead to loss of updates or access to the Internet.

Which, I suppose, is ultimate security if you keep the computer off of the Internet it won't get infected.

A total removal of Norton followed by their clean-up tool fixed each of these PCs in turn. Too often now it becomes one of my first diagnosis steps of uninstalling NIS when repairing a PC. Funny how much faster those computers run once it has been removed.


I don't need to bash McAfee as you guys are doing a good job of that.... just imagine how many advert pop-ups they are going to squash into their "free" product... what fun.
 
BlueMeanie said:
The package of junk they install alongside their AV still sucks. In the past month I have had three different clients have computers borked by Norton program updates. In each case an update managed to quietly break the OS whilst the Norton software claimed all was fine. This lead to loss of updates or access to the Internet.
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I'm using Avast but all the reviews say Norton is good now and that is what I am going by.

I used to use Panda and it didn't clean uninstall either. I even used their cleanup tool too but when I tried to re-install it recently it wouldn't because it claimed it was still installed. It needed to remove the old version first and said to click continue to remove the old version but the continue button was greyed out. That's because it had already been uninstalled but left junk files all over the place. Just today I found a Panda folder in my user folder. People say Panda is a good AV but if we judge it by your criteria it sucks also.
 
@rezerekted: I am just going by personal re-world experience. I see so many different combinations of client PCs from home to business it means I get to see a lot of normal user mess. These are the users who have no idea what [H] is all about and just use a computer as a tool.

My view is distorted as I only get to see the "bad" examples really. And know how many time I have had to clear up broken AV. Norton and McAfee take the lead between them, but then that is mostly due to being pre-installed on a new PC. Or a salesman sold a bundle of add-ons to their customer when they bought the machine. The average user doesn't realise they have a choice in AV and just pay the fees when asked by their computer.

As a home user they certainly should not have to pay some external contractor to come in and fix the mess that PC has got into due to a "Security Product" borking an upgrade. Trouble is when AV gets borked it can quickly get very messy due to the way they jam themselves into the OS. And if you have ever talked to the online support for Norton you will realise that they can't repair PCs, then only know how their tools work. Which in each case meant they were blaming the users and leaving them with borked PCs.

AVG is quickly catching up on the bork-o-meter. They are buying so many extra products and bundling them in they are starting to get lost into bloatware too. IMHO any anti-virus product that adds a "Tune-up" utility is admitting that they are slowing down the PC. :D And I have seen some really comical things done by AVG's Tune-up - from totally corrupting Office 2003 installs to even removing AVG itself as it was slowing down the old PC!!

I do get to see a few Panda's around, and really can't think of any example where I have had problems with it. Seems pretty decent.

The thing that gets me about many reviews is they seem to get lost in just listing features and counting up who has the most "features". For me I want an AV that is unintrustive and eats up a minimal of CPU whilst still giving me a good hit-rate of protection. I don't want it flapping up and down all the time telling me it is doing its job or trying to upsell me some product.
 
rezerekted said:
But someone said Norton sucks too which is not true so you should do your own investigating instead of relying on forum posts..
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rezerekted said:
But someone said Norton sucks too which is not true so you should do your own investigating instead of relying on forum posts. Norton did suck...ten years ago.
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Actually it remains true and remains true of basically every AV mentioned here. All of them are garbage at this point, especially the free versions. AVG, Avast, Avira all AV's I used to swear by at one point I wouldn't install on any system for any reason now.

The reality is performance wise all of them shit up your system except MSE. Unfortunately MSE's detection isn't what it used to be after the AV Cartels threatened to cost MS a bunch of money in lawsuits for daring to encroach on their extortion software. So what is the solution you ask? Stick with MSE and regularly use tools like Malwarebytes and Combofix to keep things clean. Combine this with smart computing habits and you shouldn't have a problem.
 
Jim Kim said:
I only recommend Avira/AVG (free or paid), Kaspersky or Norton.
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I agree, no McAfee, no way, no how.

AVG used to be good, but has fallen in the rankings.

Avira is great, but the nagware / tray-icon popups are annoying. (They can apparently be disabled through registry hacks though, I haven't gotten around to that yet.)

Norton? No... If this were the 90's maybe but not anymore.
 
I trust McAfee to keep my system safe as much as I trust Jared to supervisor a sleepover of my early teen daughter and her friends. .
 
Even Kaspersky (which is arguably the best) has a ~50% hit rate against all viruses and variants.

If you are going to surf questionable places, a linux VM inside windows with EMEF.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Even Kaspersky (which is arguably the best) has a ~50% hit rate against all viruses and variants.

If you are going to surf questionable places, a linux VM inside windows with EMEF.
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I would argue that Kaspersky themselves are questionable due to probable ties to the Russian government.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Even Kaspersky (which is arguably the best) has a ~50% hit rate against all viruses and variants.

If you are going to surf questionable places, a linux VM inside windows with EMEF.
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I surf in a Linux VM using Oracle VirtualBox that I always revert to a snapshot when I close it - but what is EMEF?
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Actually it remains true and remains true of basically every AV mentioned here. All of them are garbage at this point, especially the free versions. AVG, Avast, Avira all AV's I used to swear by at one point I wouldn't install on any system for any reason now.

The reality is performance wise all of them shit up your system except MSE. Unfortunately MSE's detection isn't what it used to be after the AV Cartels threatened to cost MS a bunch of money in lawsuits for daring to encroach on their extortion software. So what is the solution you ask? Stick with MSE and regularly use tools like Malwarebytes and Combofix to keep things clean. Combine this with smart computing habits and you shouldn't have a problem.
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I was using MSE until last week and going to Avast I don't see any performance degradation at all. These tests confirm it too.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/avc_per_201505_en.pdf
 
I haven't used Anti-Virus in 20 years. Waste of time, money, and system resources. Learn how to security.
 
Quix said:
Pass, both Norton and McAfee ceased being competitive products back around the year 2000 and just got slower, more intrusive and less usable ever since.
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Norton turned turned it around in 2009 or 2010.
 
Ya McAfee is pretty crappy.

Norton is decent these days. It used to be bad but after trying it out again, I wouldn't mind using it.
 
TheCommander said:
Ya McAfee is pretty crappy.

Norton is decent these days. It used to be bad but after trying it out again, I wouldn't mind using it.
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My biggest norton complaint is that I can no longer get it for free from Frys (AR). I miss free AV :D
 
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