Customer Reviews

McAfee Total Protection 2008 - 3 User [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

The McAfee suite worked reasonably well under Win XP but I had difficulties with it under Vista. Ended up switching to OneCare...

My main issue with McAfee is that the service comes with an auto-renewal feature. They will charge your credit card on the subscription's anniversary. Fair enough...

However, I wanted to cancel it as I no longer use the software. To my surprise, you can't just go to the web site, click on a "cancel" link and be done. They actually force you to contact customer service (phone, chat, email) and then take you through a long process (15min in my case) of getting through it. They first put you in a queue, then verify your details multiple times, then, after you make it clear that you want to cancel the service and receive a refund, the conversation goes like this:


Me: Please cancel my service and issue a refund (the 4th time I asked...)
McAfee: why?
Me: I just noticed an auto renewal charge and I don't want the service
McAfee: OK, we will terminate the auto renewal
Me: What? I don't want to terminate future auto-renwals, I want to cancel the one from last week and get a refund...
McAfee: may we ask why?
Me: please cancel and issue a refund...
McAfee: OK...


It is obvious that McAfee has all the intentions to make cancellations as difficult as possible. The 10%-20% of people who'd rather not spend the time dealing with it are pure profit. However, the rest of us consumers should not reward such practice.

The latest incarnation of McAfee's Total Protection (version 2008) seems to have gone backwards in time. Nowadays, when the trend is for users to go wireless, McAfee has decided to strip out their wireless network security component from their Total Protection 2008 suite. This component was integrated into the 2007 version, but for some reason now you need to download it from their website and install it independently. THIS IS HOW THE NIGHMARE BEGINS!!!!!!!
Once installed, the wireless component will then start prompting you endlessly for its own individual registration; but the registration will fail because it conflicts with the registration of the Total Protection suite. Countless hours of non-free (yes, McAfee DOES NOT have free telephone support even for installation issues) have not solved the issue. They instructed me to run a special removal tool they have for their software. McAfee's Total Protection does not uninstall itself completely using Windows' Add/Remove option. Then they had me install the wireless component first and then the Total Protection suite, but the same kept happening. They even took over my computer remotely but failed to produce results.
I have been dealing with McAfee for days now and no resolution has been attained. By the way, this is happening consistently in 6 computers I have in my network. In a time when the computer protection segment of the software industry is getting more and stronger competitors (Kaspersky, Bit Defender, Computer Associates and now Microsoft) than ever before, McAffe is falling on their face. SAVE YOURSELF A NIGHTMARE!!!!!

I have memories of former McAfee products. The long start up time, the splash screens every 5 minutes telling you to upgrade, and the programs that didnt work, a TOTAL SYSTEM HOG!! Make a faster computer, software companies will find a way to make it come to a crawl. I read alot of reviews, and finally decided on Kaspersky. Sounded great. From my own experience, it was horrible. The startup scan of the registry took 10 times longer than McAfee, tons of programs that didnt work, couldnt even get alot of web pages, and very little options to change the program settings (P.S. Try to uninstall this product...I dare you). From Russia with umm....love??? Technical support is in Moscow. My first thought was, "who knew more about hackers than the hackers themselves?" As a trial, I had some 200 Gb backed up to a hard drive. I bought the McAfee and wanted to compare. Kaspersky found programs that McAfee didnt, and get this, McAfee found programs that Kaspersky did not. The McAfee starts up considerably faster, no problems with web sites. I bought the Total Protection as it is the only software out there for wireless networks. I am yet to use it, but its there. The EasyNetwork, is a user friendly way through your router, that Microsoft always had, but would never work because of various firewalls. I can create a home network without it, but I would need to disable the firewall on all computers to work. Easy Network is better. The Default McAFee firewall settings are set to "Trusting" this I changed to "Tight". My thought is that they want fewer customers complaining about popups every time you go to a site. McAfee popups are fewer, while Microsoft Vista is absolutely opposite with popups and security warnings galore. Each year McAfee gets a little bit better, which tells me, they are listening to their customers or at least in-tune with their wants. And unlike Kaspersky, you can get technical support here in the USA. Security wars? not in my opinion. I also left out Norton 360. That is because I always found the Norton programs worse than McAfee, and I was a Beta tester to 360, and let me tell you, it was a nightmare. Stick with McAfee. The $35 Rebate (for upgraders, box upc, original CD, or title page of manual) should also be in the retail box when you buy it. Total cost = $34 or less. Just dont by from sellers that sell the cd only. Besides, you'll need the box as proof of your upgrade next year. Recommend buying from Amazon.

McAfee Total Protection 2007 - 3 Users

I inserted McAfee Total Protection 2007 into my PC and it would not install because a previous McAfee program that had been "uninstalled" was blocking this installation.

After running the McAfee uninstaller downloaded from the McAfee Web site, the program still would not install.

I bought PC-cillin Internet Security by Trend Micro and had no problems with installation or service.

I have been a long time user of McAfee security products.

I have installed it on many work and personal PC's over the last several years.

Recently, my home subscriptions (2 PC's) expired and I was reading a review of BitDefender. I decided to give it a try. It was very light on resources but I discovered it did not scan http traffic by default and kept disabling itself after updates on one of the PC's.

So, I went back to McAfee and this new version works as well as ever. I also really like the Site Advisor Plus. It provides lots of detailed information on sites, especially downloads and spam.

Also, McAfee is the only major security software maker that receives ICSA 2006 certification for all the components (AntiVirus, Firewall & AntiSpyware) of their security suite.

The installation is easy and straightforward. It requires registration but this is easy and allows you to opt out of notification options.

The suite updates itself daily and gives a good balance between warnings/alerts & automatically setting permissions.

The Anti-Spam feature works extremely well and integrates seamlessly with Outlook.

I do not use the Data Backup feature as I have other more reliable means of backing up so I cannot comment on this feature.

My love affair with McAfee products has regretfully come to an end. I was hesitant to leave a review, but must now agree with several reviewers here - the Total Protection package stinks. Royally. My only reason for giving it 3 stars is that it still has most of the features I enjoyed in the past, however, my system "drags" and any open applications suffer severe speed and freezing problems whenever the McAfee software is updating or running a routine scan. The scanning process is extremely slow - not like past years.

Also, customer service for their products has worsened. How did this happen to one of the leading system security software companies???!!!

This is the first year I've had this problem with McAfee. Yet, it's crucial enough to make me strongly consider purchasing a competitor's security software package.

McAfee, you should be ashamed!

I purchased McAfee for three users. After hours on their web based support, they could not make it work on any of our computers. So, I went online to cancel my subscription, which the website says they will do within 30 days. Not only can I not find a place to "unsubscribe" and "return" their software, I cannot get support to answer three emails requesting the return. I would have to say that their claim to "return" the software within 30 days is a hoax.

I've used previous versions of McAfee and Norton's but I find McAfee easier to work with. Usually I stick with the basic Anitivirus programs but with the total protection only being an extra couple of dollars I decided to give it a try.
It has installed seamlessly on all three of my computers (2 XP running previous versions of McAfee, 1 Vista with a trial version of Nortons). The installation process took care of the pervious versions of McAfee Antivirus which were installed. However, it would not install as long as Spybot Search and Destroy was still installed. Once it was uninstalled McAfee continued its installation. One feature which I liked was that you could install from the CD or from the internet. Installing from the internet gave you the most up to date version so you did not have to worry about updating it as soon as you got through the install.
You are given the option of what features you would like to install which is nice if you do not need the extra resources being used for a service you don't want.
Overall the installation went smoothly and I'm not seeing a change in the amount of resources required for this version of the simple Antivirus version from 2007.

WARNING - While McAfee provides excellent protection from the 'outside world', their latest business tactics leave them in the same league as the Scammers & Trojans they propend to protect you from.

I've been a loyal McAfee user for some years now, and I've always recommended McAfee to anyone wanting to protect themselves online. So why my 1-Star review.

I received an email today (24/02/08) stating that my Bank Account has been Debited £50 for continuation of McAfee Protection, using my previous Card Details provided. ???? What? Whenever my subscription to McAfee was due/imminent, I always made payment by my own choice, at my own discretion. However, McAfee have recently (and Silently) introduced a new service called "Automatic Renewal Service", which means that if you have an account with McAfee via your Card, you've been 'included' into this Automatic Renewal SCHEME, whether you like it or not - or even if you've never been informed of it.

Long Story Short - McAfee will 'Enrol you into the 'Automatic Renewal' scheme without informing you. This may sound quite harmless if you intend to renew into the future, but - when they renewed MY subscription 1 month in advance without my consent, it put the bank account I had registered with them in to the RED, and now my Bank will charge me £30 for going overdrawn.

Bottom Line: McAfee are getting desperate for your money, now that FREE programs are available for download to replace the role of McAfee.

It seems ironic that the friendly face of McAfee that promises to protect you from online fraud, are themselves applying dirty-tricks and 'off radar' scams to take money from your Bank Account.

This software is fantastic, but the underhanded way McAfee operate is truly a let-down, a scam, and a shame.

Having used a McAfee product in the past with which we were very pleased we were eager to try the McAfee Total Protection. It is as effective as we had expected.

Undoubtedly, the McAfee protection we were using was sadly outdated, so we were glad to find the added advantages of this edition. One only has to read of the mounting numbers of computers affected by viruses, identity thieves, and fraud scams to know how important the best protection is. We feel we have this with McAfee.

If you've been as relaxed as we have been about upgrading protection on your computer, we suggest you give this a try. We believe you'll be well pleased.