Reý Aetar asks:
Heard a lot of negative reviews about McAfee, so I want to ask the community is it safe to keep using it?
18 Answers - Write an Answer
ha14
February 19, 2013McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412835,00.asp
McAfee’s developers are serious about the “Plus” in McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013. In addition to basic antivirus functionality, it offers firewall protection, vulnerability scanning, system cleanup, and more. Its SiteAdvisor toolbar beat out all others in phishing protection. However, the core antivirus technology doesn’t score as well as many in independent tests and PCMag’s own tests.
it all depends on your habits your surfing, downloading, if you take precautions and check your downloads it should be okay;
According to PCMag in this article from Jan 30 of this year, McAfee’s toolbar (along with Norton and AVG) was in the second tier as far as phishing protection, far below the average web browser’s detection rate.
February 19, 2013perhaps the first article was written earlier than your mentioned test, but in antivirus world thing evolves so pcmag conclusions should be corrected according to latest results.
February 20, 2013Marko D
February 19, 2013I would keep it until it expires, than just turn on windows firewall , and install some free av .. and enjoy
Alan Wade
February 19, 2013McAfee hasnt been so good on the trace detection rate of late and so dosnt score so well.
Google top ten antivirus programs and top ten free antivirus programs and take it from there.
DalSan Mack
February 19, 2013Many users are going by experiences that they have had or have heard of in the past. They have been making better progress, but I would rather have Norton or BitDefender. I have had to remove boot sector viruses from several machines that had McAfee on them, but the users were far from being savvy enough to know how to surf the web in a proactive manner. If you know how to prevent these issues, then you are fine. Otherwise another brand might suit your needs a little better. The Site Advisor is among the top in antiphishing protection with the ability to advise the user on which sites are safe and which sites may be sketchy. Just to be safer, I would recommend installing Malwarebytes AntiMalware free edition and scan frequently just to be extra safe.
Nevzat Akkaya
February 19, 2013I also had McAfee preloaded on my laptop, since it was a time-limited product, I uninstalled it and started to use Windows Defender and Firewall for now. I consider continuing with Windows security utils or another free security suite, Comodo might be an option.
You should definitely be using something else. The tests in both October 2012 and December 2012 resulted in a failure to achieve certification in the AV-Test labs results (see here). Even the test in August resulted in them BARELY achieving a high enough score for certification. You need to go all the way back to June of 2010 to see a score greater than 3 of 6 for their protection rating.
Also see this PCMag report and the results of testing at Dennis Labs in London.
February 19, 2013I’ve heard about it lately. Time to get Avast anti-virus and Comodo firewall then.
February 20, 2013Oron Joffe
February 19, 2013McAfee has given many of my clients a lot of grief either in not updating properly, or simply in using far too much computer resources (CPU cycles and memory). It seems silly to me to spend money AND get an inferior product.
There are plenty of good security products there, choose almost any of them and you’ll be better off. Some good free products include Microsoft Security Essentials (called Windows Defender in Win 8, and included in the system), AVG, AVIRA, Avast and others. Some good paid-for “suites” include AVG, AVIRA, Avast, Kaspersky, Norton, ESET, Panda…
garva sharma
February 20, 2013mcafee is a good anti virus program but it is not as good as AVG in my personal opinion you can go with avg its free version is a very very usefull app because its free and regular updated by avg and for your knowledge avg is the 2nd largest anti virus company after Kespersky
Junil Maharjan
February 20, 2013There are some negative reviews regarding McAfee failing to address some issues with their software. But in my opinion there are much better free antivirus softwares than McAfee. AVG, Avira, avast are some of the better antivirus.
Justin Ellenwood
February 20, 2013This is an ok antivirus. However, it is a resource hog. It is better then free versions but is one of the worst paid versions. Go with BitDefender or F-Secure.
Imesh Chandrasiri
February 20, 2013If you are satisfied with the protection that the current application provide, stick to it! or else go for a better one! it all depends on you requirements!
Tanveer Ahmed
February 20, 2013use it till the licence expires,
The uninstall mcafee and buy another antivirus software
susendeep dutta
February 20, 2013Even as others are suggesting about the negative reviews,one uses an antivirus for protection and if it fails in certain ares which can be covered by using other solutions either free or paid,then one must go for it rather than sticking with what has been enforced upon.
So,if your habits are good enough and you are knowledgeable person to deal with any kind of virus issues then keep on using it.
Anish Parameshwaran
February 20, 2013Only downside to McAfee is that it’s subscription based, so It’ll work for a year or so and then it will keep harping you to subscribe again. As an alternative to these subscription based anti-virus softwares, try using AVG (http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage). It’s free and very effective as an antivirus agent.
Tim Brookes
February 20, 2013I would personally ditch McAfee, and would recommend doing so to anyone. For a comparable (if not better, I read that McAfee isn’t great these days) experience go for the one we recommend the most, avast!.
It’s a complete package, doesn’t come with any daily adverts (like Avira does) and of course is completely free. It was the first free antivirus to contain a sandbox environment which allows you to open potentially damaging files in a safe manner. I think it had this feature before a number of the premium paid services, so they’ve proven they can innovate and make a good product.
You get new definitions every day, though I’d recommend turning off the “Avast virus database has been updated!” announcement because it gets annoying after a few months of hearing it. It installs a security suite with a few other programs too, though you can turn everything but what you need off if you want.
avast! is the best free antivirus, bar none!
salim benhouhou
February 20, 2013i would recommend :
http://www.bitdefender.com
or http://www.avast.com
Suvadeep Paul
February 21, 2013According to the review Mcafee internet Security 2013 is more or less a good product.
Check the links below for reviews:
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1%5Breport_no%5D=124548
http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mcafee-review.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412909,00.asp
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/software/3423319/mcafee-internet-security-2013-review/
http://www.nextadvisor.com/internet_security_software/mcafee2012_review.php
If you use your PC for regular purpose, then I think it will do the job. Or else keep Mcafee and then install Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free. This is an excellent product and the size after install is 18.4MB (according to Windows 7-64Bit). Its light on resource and detection rate is very good.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/
However, if you want to increase the security then you can use Bit Defender Internet Security 2013. Its excellent. Currently topping the review and rating charts. Only cons is, its heavy on your system resource and slow your PC a bit.(Based on your PC configurations)
Apart from that you can try Kaspersky Internet Security 2013. It is a good product. Protection is strong and moderate on resource.
However, if you don’t want to spend your hard earned money on Anti-Virus Software, then try Avast, AVG or Avira. These three products are really good with basic protection. But keep your Windows Firewall on and uncheck all the exceptions.
Etech Etech
February 28, 2013I would switch. Microsoft Security Essentials works great, and it’s free. I’ve had much better experiences with it than with McAfee.
Chinmay Sarupria
March 18, 2013If you are currently using McAfee i would recommend you to switch to Bitdefender.