McAfee
 

I've been using McAfee security for many years with good results. Last year, when I renewed, they added something called "SiteAdvisor" that drove me nuts. It's basically a net nanny to "protect children from objectionable content".

I want objectionable content, damnit! At least I want to decide what is objectionable. It took me a month to get them to remove "SiteAdvisor" and let me return to the status quo.

I get a notice my subscription has expired, so I go to renew only to find this notice...They offer three options, none without "SiteAdvisor". Fuck that! Fuck McAfee!

What are my options folks?

Linux

"Careful computing", although I wouldn't recommend it to everybody, it has worked perfectly for me. I have had no viruses or anything ever and I have never used anti-virus of any kind. This is where you:

a) never run anything from an untrusted source;
b) never INSTALL anything from an untrusted source;
c) use Firefox;
d) use Thunderbird or a web-based email such as Gmail;
... a+b+d) all executable attachments in email are untrusted;
e) if you must IM, use Pidgin;
f) don't go clicking on all kinds of shit everywhere.

People also advise that you

g) don't operate your system with Administrator rights

...although I do this all the time because I'm a bad-ass.

Other than UT's suggestion, I dropped those a-holes years ago. I use AVG free now.

McAfee fucks with my gmail, and I can't seem to fix it. What about Norton? Aren't those the two "industry standards" type things?

I use Avast free, and also follow UT's suggestions for the most part.

With Avast and AVG out there, I see no reason to pay for virus protection.

I just updated to it and I ignore the function. I have gotten use to it. It changes nothing.

I used it for a month, a year ago, Merc. Pretty hard to ignore when it interrupted every damn thing I tried to do.
That's no fun. I find some of my best yuks that way.
A friend has Norton on their computer. Every time I have to straighten something out for them (yes, there are still a couple people in the world that know less than I do) I've found Norton even more intrusive.

I originally owned McAfee and now started getting it free through Comcast. At one point an update installed that locked up Thunderbird. I had to do a Google search to find the patch, since it seems to me that one has to log in to McAfee and know exactly what the issue is before they will present a patch. The patch fixed the issue but interfered with later updates, so I had to use the McAfee Virtual Technician to rebuild and repair.

IMO, McAfee is not kind to Mozilla.

if the Site Advisor comes up a lot on sites you go to frequently, you can click on the green arrow Site Advisor icon and tell it to ignore.

I will say that Mcafee makes it hard not to buy the "full package."

?WHY? have to do this?

Exactly, Buster, I got tired of that shit.
It appeared that it would stop, me if there were any links it didn't like, on the site I was trying to go to. I don't go to many sites that don't have links to questionable content, even the Cellar has links to questionable content sometimes.

The point is, they treat me like an idiot/child. Fuck them, they're gone.

I have Norton on my computer here at work - and haven't had any trouble with it - I (without saying too much) have been to questionable sites, obviously unsuspectingly and have had no "blockages" to come up.

McAfee is not kind to performance, period.

It's a decent AV program, slightly better than Symantec AV Corporate Edition for catching viruses. The corporate version of McAfee is MUCH better than the home version, IMHO. If you can get a corporate license of it via either work or CDW, you're actually better off than buying the consumer version in the store.

However, it's known to crash machines if installed at the same time Symantec is (I have seen this on my own), and to be a bit slow. You have to add exceptions if you have certain (read: database) files on your machine.

The corporate version doesn't have all the extra crap the home version does. Same with Symantec. I'd rather pay for Symantec AV Corporate Edition and LiveUpdate or McAfee than get AVG (performance hog and kills Outlook performance), ClamAV (same), or the other free ones. The Norton home products are also garbage to the nth degree.

As I don't have any use for outlook, can't comment on that. But imho any 1/2 assed ISP would include some kinda of anti-virus detection in their deal. As to resource hogs, just install and have a look in taskmanager. If bad and free uninstall and try another. BTW what you set as defaults has some affect on this. bb

OK, McAfee is history. I loaded Avast to give that a try for awhile. Time will tell, but it seems friendly and intuitive enough for me to bumble through it.

I Avast. I love it!

WOW. Yeah I know, but I couldn't help it.

Know whut?

I just paid for ZoneAlarm. It hasn't interfered with email or browsing but can take a while doing a scan, which slows my Athlonx2 down noticably.

and I learned never to stop the scan in the middle of checking RAM...bad things happen.

Otherwise, it's a decent program...no bad things or malware that I've ever found and it's peace of mind what with these public connections.

Update
 

I've been using AVAST, free security software, for about two months.
It's great! I'm happy as a pig in poopie.
Once a day or so a little window pops up it the corner to tell me the database has been updated and I don't even have to close the window. Just ignore it and it goes away by itself.

Now, it may be sending every keystroke to the CIA/FBI, but at least it's not annoying me.

Most criticism I hear about security software is more often traceable to their pathetic explanation of what the software does what the various setting really do. For example, how many would understand which ports are blocked, or if a port is even blocked. And blocked how?

MacAfee’s Security Center - how you control and setup their various softwares - is a human interface disaster. It took forever to grasp their hierarchy. Now, if I want port 139 blocked on WiFi but not on the LAN, can I do it? Or is that setting really applied? And do those setting remain when I reboot? All this is vague if not explained at all.

But then every Norton installation in the past year and a half has been a disaster. For example, Norton will charge for the upgrade to Windows 98 - which their software does not work on. The upgrade to Windows 2000 will literally destroy register setting rather than announce the software does not work on Windows 2000.


Consumer Reports rated all these softwares recently. Noted was a lower rating of Norton compared to MacAfee. I believe that is a reversal. But even Consumer Reports did not complain about what these software packages all make difficult. You really have little idea what is and is not being protected. Then they require a complete package purchase forcing you to buy other bells and whistles. Ok. Many software companies do that. But at least others explain what those new bells and whistles do. Somehow I am supposed to know what it does only from the Trademark name?

And yes, some blocking functions do get turned back on after rebooting the computer. Good luck to others even knowing what is and is not still protected. Thunderbird stops working? So which function caused it? Good luck trying to find out which blocked port blocked that software. Yes it can be done. But good luck especially if you are not the only user on this computer.

I've used Avast for almost 2 years now. No problems, conflicts, or viruses have hit me during that time.

Classic. I thought I'd give McAfee a spin, because it was on sale at Costco, and boy was I in for a shock. There aren't any controls! You can't tell it to do anything, and it won't tell you what it's doing. It's like they expect you to think that PC security is something that can be done with an "ON" button. Okay, McAfee is "ON" so now I don't have to worry about anything. Yeah, right. Give me a goddamn "advanced tab" - how hard is that?

I am troubled by this trend in software designed for people that aren't expected to know how to use it. I don't like "just trust us" because, I don't.

Your in the minority Flint. Most of the great unwashed don't want to know, they just want it to work. Not only the security, but everything including the PC.

The same applies to their cars and everything else they use, they just want it to work.

Actually it does have controls and it does 'tell you' what it is doing - somewhat. But you must know how to find that information. Like every observed security package, it is either user unfriendly, will not provide useful 'help' information, or does not provide many protection features so that users would be 'pleased'.

McAfee has one tool I like. Enter the URL or IP address to see geographically where the 'intruder' is coming from. Is that IP address an existing intruder or simply from my executing program? That tool makes it faster to answer the question ... if you can remember the illogical sequence of mysterous mouse clicks to get to it.

A combination of AVG Free, Pest Patrol and Zone Alarm Suite Free keeps me totally trouble free, and I go to some pretty weird web sites.