McAffee - stay or go?
 

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

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

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.

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

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.

McAffee - stay or go?
 

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:

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

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!!

"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

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

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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

Just download and run the free version

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.

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.

Agree completely with MJ about user accounts.

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

SD

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.