McAffee - stay or go?

[FullOppositeRudder]

These are stressful times.

I just taken delivery of a new Dell i7 laptop, so I have a lot to learn - Windoze 7 being one of them. I've yet to discover anything about W7 that I really like, but I guess I'll find my way around it in time. (You may recall that I am somewhat happily entrenched in XP)

Then there is the amount of pre-installed crap (I believe that is now an approved technical term) to wade through which Dell have kindly provided for my ongoing frustration.

One of these is a free 15 month subscription to McAfee. I've always been happy with Windows security essentials on some machines and Avast on others.

Do I stay with McAfee, or remove it in favour of a known, understood and satisfactory alternative? I note that a significant sample of the Gurgle returns on McAffee seem to be from people wanting to remove it :(

Thanks in advance ....

FoR

[lomapaseo]

I have several Dells ordered from Dell

When I get one I just go through and delete most of their programs and reload from my own stash of favorites.

This is not a vote against Dell but more a comfort factor for me not having to learn new tricks.

This includes getting rid of their anti-virus loads and using my own favourite.

It's your computer so treat it like part of your family.

Now if you want pros and cons on the usefulness of specific bloatware start by parsing your question along a specific items for comparisons

[11Fan]

Here in 11Fanland, three Dell Laptops, one Samsung Laptop, and one Dell Desktop, all fitted with McAfee. One Dell is company owned and the McAfee was their call. So we went with McAfee since the company trusted it.

No significant issues, save for one Yahoo Password hack, but presumably unrelated to the Anti-Virus. I think it was just a bad e-mail. Anyway, all goodness here, for what it's worth.

BTW, running Win 7 on two laptops, Vista on other two laptops and XP on the Desktop.

[rogerg]

I run a Dell, and have McAfee installed as it is included with my BT ISP. No probs for the past few years.

[Ancient Observer]

As a BT customer, I get "free" McAfee for up to 5 machines. I am not very good at this techie stuff. In the past, I have loaded McA sort of automatically. There have been two occasions in the last couple of months where I have got rid of it.
Once - described on another thread - McAfee interfered with Windoze updates on a Vista machine. No idea why. Removing McAfee and installing Security Essential seemed to solve the problem.
Second case was a wheezing old pc with XP SP3. it appeared to be slower and slower. Removal of McA and installing Sec Ess helped it increase its speed.
On my much newer, all singing 7/64, I just never put McA on. Just secEss.
So in my customer experience, nothing wrong with McA, but the time might come to dump it some time in the future.

[gramaticus]

I also got McA free with BT when I upgraded to Fibre Optic but soon got rid in favour of AVG (free version) - never had an issue even with the Paid version :ok:

[Milo Minderbinder]

I regularly have to clean up machines which have McAfee installed

After I've worked on them they have Avast installed, and I've never yet had to go back for a reinfection.
Thats good enough for me to make a decision! On all new machines I set up, McAfee gets removed

[mad_jock]

I always spend the first 30 mins of owning a label branded computer deleting all the useless crap off them.

I would get shot of it as well.

Now I hope you have made yourself up with a user account instead of running in an admin account!!

[Milo Minderbinder]

"I hope you have made yourself up with a user account instead of running in an admin account!! "

The problem with that is I find most users are incapable of understanding the difference, and can't cope with having to put in passwords
UAC is a great idea, let down by lack of knowledge of the average user

[FullOppositeRudder]

Thank you all for your valued comments and advice. :ok:
FOR.

[El Grifo]

Had McAfee running on 5 machines for years now. Download all sorts from loads of sources, never had as much as a sniffle never mind a virus !

10 out of 10 I say :ok:

Cheers
El G.

[goudie]

When I bought my Acer last year it came with a McAfee trial period, which I then purchased for £24.99. Was rather peeved when they automatically renewed it last week at a cost of £54.99! Got straight on to phone to them, spoke to a very nice lady who immediatly reduced it to £24.99.
Must say, it appears to have done the job in keeping all the internet rogues at bay.
Be interesting to see what they come up with next year. If they try the same trick again I'll probably bin them.

[El Grifo]

Yep my automatic renewal comes in about 24 quid or so !

[OFSO]

I always spend the first 30 mins of owning a label branded computer deleting all the useless crap off them.

Me too. Wife's Toshiba laptop (WIN7) came loaded with useless things.

Then install AVG and Malware Bytes for virus software.

I'm typing this on the main PC, had built for me, loaded XP, then did a lot of hardware upgrades over the years myself. Not a bit of software crap on it. (Except old PPRuNe posts).

[Shack37]

"I hope you have made yourself up with a user account instead of running in an admin account!! "

The problem with that is I find most users are incapable of understanding the difference, and can't cope with having to put in passwords
UAC is a great idea, let down by lack of knowledge of the average user


Must confess to being in this category. I use the admin account simply because I wasn't aware of any advantage in setting up a user account. I have Avast freeware protection and in three years of use, no problems.

[Milo Minderbinder]

If you want to tidy up a machine and remove all the preloaded junk, this makes it easy
The PC Decrapifier Wipes Unwanted Junk | The PC Decrapifier (http://pcdecrapifier.com/)

Just download and run the free version

[mad_jock]

Shack it stops most nastys in thier tracks before they can do anything even without an antivirus.

The only occassional bind is that if you want to install some software it asks you for the admin password.

Obviously if you haven;t intended to install any software you say "no" when it asks.

Apart from that you won't actually see much difference day to day.

[Shack37]

mad_jock, thanks for that explanation. Since I've had no probs so far as Admin and with Avast I'll stick with what I've got.

[Saab Dastard]

Agree completely with MJ about user accounts.

It has prevented a lot of problems with my childrens' PCs!! :)

SD

[mad_jock]

Shank just humour me and try it.

I will almost garantee you won't see any difference day to day. For shared PC's it is also great as well because no sod messes with your settings.

[Ancient Observer]

"User" vs "admin" accounts.

I have to agree with his madness.

I've been a "user" only for about 4 years now. It used to be a pain in XP but 7/64 makes it easier as I no longer have to switch to admin to do tasks - it just asks for the password.

[mad_jock]

To be honest in W7 even the account that you think is admin isn't really in the home versions.

It more of an enhanced user account which doesn't have complete rights over everything.

You need to activate the account if you want to go in and fiddle directly with the sys configuration files to force the sod into doing things the none microsoft way.

[G-CPTN]

I've had this laptop for about six months and recently (a week or ten days) my usually reliable Firefox (25.0) has started to crash regularly.

When I 'restore session' the first page that comes up is a request from McAfee Security Scan Plus suggesting that I update to a paid version (McAfee Total Protection - URL:- http : //home.mcafee.com/Root/Campaign.aspx?cid=81716&ss=3&rid=0&ths=3&trj=0&vir=0&pup=0&virc=0&trjc=0&pupc=0&webd=1&web=0 ) - no spaces

Any ideas how to purge this 'spam' as I have no intention of buying a paid-for version?

Do I have to (simply?) uninstall McAfee?

It has never been intrusive before but it is annoying me beyond my tolerance.

The shortcut is addressed to C : \Windows\TEMP\nsn9315.tmp\x64 (no spaces) but that says it is 'not valid'.

Edited to add:- The installation date for McAfee Security Scan Plus is 18th October 2013 - I certainly didn't install this willingly, maybe it was bundled with an Adobe Flash update?
Adobe updates Flash against security flaw - but watch out for the extras | Technology | theguardian.com (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/15/adobe-hacking)

.

[El Grifo]

I have paid for McAfee for years now and found it to be pretty good.

Recently they have been emailing my sayoing that I am running it on 4 computers and only have a licence for one. I don't have 4 computers !!

WTF :ugh: :ugh:

[exeng]

Avast has never let anything by. I used to use AVG but changed to Avast for reasons that I cannot remember now.

Call me mean but I do like free! I have never paid since viruses were invented.


Regards
Exeng

[lomapaseo]

I have paid for McAfee for years now and found it to be pretty good.

Recently they have been emailing my sayoing that I am running it on 4 computers and only have a licence for one. I don't have 4 computers !!

a couple of possible explanations

1. somebody else is using your license without your knowledge

or;

2. McAfee assumes that many, like me cheat, and load it on other computers without McAfee knowing or paying and they are just taking a shot in the dark that they can get more money out of you.

[FullOppositeRudder]

Since this thread was started by me a while back, I perhaps need to advise that following my posting some 15 months ago (permalink 10), I initiated an uninstall from within Control Panel.

Despite protests from the McAffee site and the program itself, the process seems to have gone smoothly with no trace of the McAffeeism since that time.

Avast was installed immediately and has performed as expected. :ok:

[Phileas Fogg]

I tried McAffee antivirus for all of about three days before binning it.

My email client was business related, thousands of emails in it much in sub folders.

Each time I would open the email client McAffee needed to scan EVERY email and EVERY attachment in my email client, even after a system reboot it would scan everything and perhaps several times each day.

So upon a start-up or reboot and opening of email client McAffee would get to work scanning for an hour or longer before I could effectively use the PC or send/receive emails, there was no way to deprogramme this function and it wasn't clever enough to realise it had scanned such emails and/or attachments multiple times already.

Thereafter, and ever since, I went with Comodo and it's free.

[Loose rivets]

New computers and junk:

Not the junk per se for me, just the @#$%@#$ messing with the partitions. I want C drive D drive E drive with nothing in C but the OS. I don't mind if there's a hidden partition ahead of C, it is after all, transparent most of the time.

Sony have been fine on this, but HP were a pain. Once I'd got everything as I wanted it, I sadly had to reload the OS from the Recover discs. Yep, One drive and all the crap was back.

I have a copy of 7 made for HP. If I load it without disc 1, all is a normal (licensed - non-OEM ) installation. If I put in disc 1, I get the @#$^%@$. Okay, sound easy, but I have never, ever, been able to get the drivers loaded so have to work around things with Windows-X keystroke. I use it every day, but I just feel kind of defeated.