at £45 a year for antivirus plus when all my email is web mail?

No.

If you’ve got a paid-up copy of a modernish Windows Microsoft Security Essentials will do fine.

NO

Or let me put it another way:

HELL NO

McAfee is terrible, will mess up your machine, and costs a fortune.

Microsoft Security Essentials is great and free.

My answer would be no.

Free options include AVG, Avast and Microsoft Essentials. I also use Malwarebytes as a separate screening tool if I think there is an issue.

Other opinions will doubtless be along shortly.

Edit – See above, and below in doe course.

NB from personal experience McAfee can be set up to stop other virus software loading/working so you will probably need to disable/remove it before loading/starting its replacement.

Get a Mac, itll be cheaper!

Didn’t MSE recently fail to achieve AV-Test Certification, scoring pretty low? I know that they’ve moved us over to something else at work. Don’t know if they’ve fixed that or if it’s actually of any significance. I run linux on all my stuff at home and don’t bother with av atm.

Last time I checked it was as good as any other in tests. And much less annoying, without the constant messages like:

ffhj32.dll wants to make changes to your computer. Allow?

Er.. I dunno.. wtf? More information:

ffhj32.dll attempting to write to c:\windows\system32\flimflamflom\xyz.inf. This may constitute a risk.

Umm.. ok?

Depends, is your computer too responsive? Do you hate the way it just works? Does it routinely allow you to do the things you want to do?

Then you need McAfee Security. Keeping your safe by keeping you from using you computer…

Last time I checked it was as good as any other in tests.

Would appear not according to AV-Test, although as I say I don’t know if that’s significant. Does any AV still do that crap with the messages? I sure wouldn’t tolerate that these days!

Didn’t MSE recently fail to achieve AV-Test Certification, scoring pretty low?

Do you want something that works, or does well in tests?

The last set of testing I looked at where MSE got panned, it was an apples & oranges test. MSE is an AV product and nothing else, which is both its strength and its weakness. Any testing that evaluates say, firewall capabilities or something that net-nannies the user when they to go to http://www.lookatthejubbliesonthat.com, is going to fall short.

We’ve discussed this at length before though, the same question crops up weekly. I’m going to write a STW FAQ I think.

Symantec does it, sadly I have no choice cos it’s a work thing.

Is AV-Test sponsored by any commerical AV software vendors? Given the dodgy stuff MacAfee get up to, I would not be surprised at all.

The last set of testing I looked at where MSE got panned, it was an apples & oranges test. MSE is an AV product and nothing else, which is both its strength and its weakness

That’d be good enough for me! I don’t choose the AV stuff at work as it’s their machine I just follow orders. If I had a windows install I would actually still MSE on it as it’s just no fuss.

Exercising a small amount of brains does help too – like not opening files called “Best tits ever.exe”.

Absolutely. Keeping your software up to date and not being a halfwit is about the best AV defence you can get.

MSE user here too..

*sniff*

Bought a notebook that had McAfee pre-installed recently. It kept bluescreening until I’d got rid of McAfee. Which involved hunting out and downloading a tool from their website. Annoying.
Otherwise, I have nothing useful to add, beyond that I’m disappointed that the site Cougar linked to appears to be down.

Just set up my FiL new laptop and it’s running MSE and Windows Firewall.

No bother and no stupid alerts.

It also doesn’t cripple your PC because of resource hungry AV software (had to uninstall Norton from the shop bought laptop).

Plus they don’t try to trick you into buying other software during install or upgrades (try asking your not IT literate FiL to install AVG Free on his own).

Oh and you could create a second user without admin rights as your main user if you’re likely to be sharing your PC with people who aren’t IT literate.

No one needs McAfee. It is crap.

Go with Bitdefender or Kaspersky.

Actually, just remembered it’s not called MSE on Windows 8 (which is shockingly unintuitive by the way), it’s now called Windows Defender.

McAfee isn’t as bad as it once was- it used to be worse than the viruses it was supposed to defend you against, and to prove it, it let you get lots of viruses to compare. These days it’s merely poor.

MSE isn’t perfect though, I’ve had a couple of irritating infestations over the last couple of years. Maybe Bitdefender, Kaspersky, or AVG would have done better, maybe not. But it’s good enough.

It’s kind of already been done, but in answer to the OP, I’ve just switched to Plusnet which gives you “Plusnet Protect powered by McAfee” for free. I opted out. Paying for it would be madness.

Though whilst we’re here, is Kaspersky as bad, or is it actually worth having? Can get that for free through my online banking, but have always decided to avoid that too due to experience with other products.

Nobody needs McAfee – with the possible exception of Interpol

Resource hungry Anti-virus products – of which McAfee is only one – are the scourge of computer users all over the world. The insidious practice of giving them away ‘free’ with new PCs (then relying on uninformed users to pay for renewals) is akin to the way that drug dealers operate.

We have McAfee at work. I hate it.Even though it is set up to _not_ do random scans while I am using it, it does random scans while I am using it. Using 50% of my CPU and making the whole thing grind to a halt.

I like my Mac. It’s great.

Actually, just remembered it’s not called MSE on Windows 8 (which is shockingly unintuitive by the way), it’s now called Windows Defender.

Not entirely accurate. Windows Defender was and is a separate product, for scanning the system for malware. I think AV software attempts to stop it getting in in the first place. Defender was always free with Windows, as was Windows firewall.

In Windows 8 apparently Defender now does AV as well and is integrated into the OS.

chvck – Member
Didn’t MSE recently fail to achieve AV-Test Certification, scoring pretty low? I know that they’ve moved us over to something else at work. Don’t know if they’ve fixed that or if it’s actually of any significance. I run linux on all my stuff at home and don’t bother with av atm.

How many workstations do you have in your company with MSE installed?

Yeah, I know all that.

FYI it’s not integrated in windows 8, you have to download it with a bundle of other crap like messenger etc.

How many workstations do you have in your company with MSE installed?

Not a clue I have nothing to do with any of that stuff. I guess that if MSE has a max. number of machines it can be run on then maybe that could actually be why we had to change, it was around the time that report came out but could be pure coincidence.

FYI it’s not integrated in windows 8

Not according to teh internets:

Windows Defender and Windows SmartScreen are built into Windows 8 and Windows RT and help guard your PC against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software in real time.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/windows-defender#1TC=t1

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2020260/how-to-activate-windows-defender-in-windows-8.html

McAfee brought our whole network down with a bad update file.

And you don’t need it anyway.

I must have bought a dodgy installation of windows last week as I had to download it.

Good god no. I’d rather have a virus than that bloated POS.

Chvck, it’s licenced for home use and home businesses only (up to 10 workstations).

I suspect that’s why they had to change! It’s not a corporate product, I looked into it as our place wanted to use it, we’ve gone with Sophos instead which doesn’t play nicely with sysprep/ghost :/

We’ve discussed this at length before though, the same question crops up weekly. I‘m going to write a STW FAQ I think.

Ooh, look at you … Going for a promotion at STW Towers are we? 😛

is Kaspersky as bad, or is it actually worth having?

I went Norton – Kaspersky – Norton and couldn’t tell the difference.

If find Norton is better then it used to be, but I’m still considering not botheringwith it in future.

Well, I’m disappointed.

Alt text:

He’s a hacker’s worst nightmare, click here to find out his secret!

I went Norton – Kaspersky – Norton and couldn’t tell the difference.

Given I wouldn’t let Norton near my computer either, I think that tells me all I need to know – thanks.

Thanks guys – I’m £45 richer!

whilst we’re here, is Kaspersky as bad, or is it actually worth having?

I quite liked Kaspersky, it’s a decent product. It’s what I was running before I jumped ship to MSE (I got a free licence for training purposes when it looked like I might have to support it).

OK – might give that a look then as it’s free. Cheers.

Is it? It wasn’t last time I used it. I think the base edition was about ten quid or something.