Customer Reviews

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2007

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

Pro: Buy this only if you need all 3 programs and do not already have any of them.
Those being:
1. anti-virus
2. firewall
3. anti spyware

CONS: several (read on)

My antispyware from mcafee expired sept 2006.
I contacted mcafee and found out that you cannot buy it separately anymore.

You have to buy a stupid "suite" of mcafee softwares in order to get the
antispyware program.

So I bought this particular mcafee "suite" .

[Remember now, I bought this ONLY for the antispyware program.
(maybe down the road, I'll use the mcafee firewall. But at present
my ZA6 is still good for 6 months).

Just the Antispyware program].

What mcafee did NOT tell me is that this "Suite" will want to install
what it thinks I should install, not what I tell it I want/need installed.


Surprise #1 !

The antispyware does not have it's own install program.
(probably tied in as part of the anti-virus)

Surprise #2 !
Tried to install as a CUSTOM install and once it sees that
zone alarm 6(my firewall) is loaded, it gives me the option to "Skip" this item, leaving the current installed program in place.

I did so and then it tells me:
a. it cannot load the virusscan due to the zone alarm being found????

[What kind of "CUSTOMIZED install" is this?
CUSTOMIZED means that the installer dictates what gets installed.
Not according to this software pkg].

b. What does the a competitor's firewall have to do with mcafee's virusscanner not installing ??
They are 2 different function programs.

What kind junk is this????

c. Who cares whether ZA6 firewall is found? It should NOT prevent the viruscan and anti-spyware from loading/installing.

Surprise #3
Looks like mcafee won and I lost.
I want the stinking ANTISPYWARE and only the antispyware.
They don't want to give it to me as a single program.

Good thing the box says they have a 30 day moneyback guarantee.

REMEMBER :
If you need all 3 programs because you got a new pc, or your old subscription for a whole "suite" of programs has expired,
This package MIGHT work for you.

If you are looking for ONLY the anti-spyware application;
FORGET IT!

Consider the Mcafee Antispyware application part of
"SUITE installation only" package.
It doesn't install by itself as a standalone program anymore.

Go get webroot's spysweeper or sunbelt's counterspy.
Both/either are good
--------------------

UPDATE 10-06-2006

I installed this onto a 2nd pc, since it is not worth my efforts and postage costs to return it to mcafee for a refund.

As a suite that exists by itself, without any other conflicting applications, it does a decent job.

I was testing it a bit more and it does give a nice display of my home network - router, modem, other pc's, and such. Active or disconnected network links on the home network,IP addresses and network names, ect.

For this 2nd pc that I installed it on, when it failed to install onto my primary pc, it works fine.

In that respect, I would give it 4 stars.


-----------------------------------

No matter what the configuration screens say, you *CANNOT* get this software to stop using your network for anything it wants without your approval.

No matter what the configuration screens say, you *CANNOT* get this software to stop popping up those annoying-as-hell messages on the bottom right hand corner of your screen. Beyond being terribly annoying with their in-your-face display of how you don't have control of your own computer, these pop-up messages can mess up full-screen graphics software.

McAfee customer support is offensive. They treat you like you're an idiot, as if you don't know what you're talking about. Then after weeks of several people trying to explain the problem (this is in the McAfee message forums), once McAfee DOES understand the problem, they dismiss you like you're incompetent. Then in the next software update not only aren't these horrible, glaring, disgusting problems with the software not fixed, they're WORSE THAN EVER.

I gave this software/company/service a couple of years worth of the benefit of the doubt. But with every change to their software, especially the most recent one, it's worse than it was before.

I was tempted to give this product two stars in stead of one, but when the basic purpose of defensive software is to help the user defend their machine, and *NOT* to ignore the user, and open up MORE network ports and use even MORE of the user's network resources for stuff the user does NOT want, clearly the product is NOT doing what is wanted by the user. So no, this gets the lowest rating.

The other reviewers must not have any idea what resources this software is helping itself to when they give it an absolutely frightening five stars.

If I hired a security guard for my home, and every day when I came home I caught him going through my daughter's underwear drawer, I'd feel about the same way as I do about McAfee. Maybe he did keep OTHER people from breaking into our home, but the total creep-out cost is far, far, FAR too high!

I upgraded to this latest version of the McAfee product, wanting only the VirusScan, which has served me well over many years. Unfortunately, you must now accept a "suite" of solutions that McAfee deems in your best interest. If you need the functionality of the whole suite, you may be satisfied - or not. If you only want one component, you bought a truckload of trouble. It claims to be user-configurable. You will get a lot of practice at this because the product resets to McAfee's default configuration every few days. It requires considerable time and effort to drill down and disable each item in that configuration. But you have little choice. The program will nag you without mercy until you are "fully protected" - every time you boot up. One McAfee-dictated setting is a deep scan of your system every morning. You probably know that can pretty much tie up your processor for the rest of the day. McAfee Customer Service has been, well, politely quiet. In my view McAfee VirusScan has become a virus with an innovative Auto-nag feature.

This is less a review for VirusScan Plus 2007, and more a review of Mcafee's customer service support, which obviously extends to all of their products.

I used a Mcafee product for about six weeks with no problems. One day, I had a technical issue. It was then that I discovered that Mcafee's technical support and customer service departments are shamefully unprepared to assist customers.

- I had to pay three dollars a minute to use the technical support telephone number. Of the seven minutes I was on that call, I was on hold for more than half the time (still being charged). When the technician finally emailed me instructions to resolve my technical issue, I quickly discovered he had sent me instructions for an issue completely unrelated to mine. In essence, I spent 21 dollars on hold music. (seven minutes)

- Mcafee has an online technician chat option for those people who do not wish to pay for technical support. My experience was VERY slow, I was frequently disconnected, and most importantly, I chatted with EIGHT different technicians (I cut-and-pasted all the chat sessions), and none of them was able to provide me with information that was even remotely relevant to my problem. They were all using standard cut-and-paste respponses that did not address my difficulty. (four hours)

- I studied the Help Tree, FAQ, and Help Index sections on the Mcafee website, to no avail (one hour)

- I finally called the customer service support line (it's NOT a toll-free number), explained that I wanted a product refund, and was told I would be contacted within 48 hours. When I wasn't, I called and began an almost indescribably difficult process of getting my refund:

- conversations with TEN different customer service representatives
- being put on hold for one hour on TWO separate occasions, having to finally hang up and call back
- being cut off twice
- in all, spending FOUR HOURS on the phone

The worst part is that my issue STILL isn't resolved. Since I'm demanding that I be reimbursed the money I spent on calling technical support, and that I be compensated for all the personal time and phone time I have invested, I'm STILL dealing with them.

This is a shameful, disgustingly low level of customer support. It's a shockingly unethical way to do business, and it robs the product owner of any peace-of-mind. We buy internet security and antivirus software for peace-of-mind. But this horrible experience has utterly robbed me of it.

PLEASE DO NOT BUY ANY SOFTWARE PUBLISHED BY MCAFEE.

Had previous version, was OK. Upgraded to this version. Immediately my computer became annoyingly slow. More annoying: I started to notice that (important business) emails were never received by the recipients. But no alert or error message whatsoever. Turns out that the were blocked by the outgoing email message scanner... Without notice... Will never use McAfee again, totally unacceptable.

McAffe is "like a boat anchor on your computer system resources, slowing your system down to a crawl" (SOmeone rating Microsoft Live). I agree! We could not play any games, it was constantly, pausing for no reason... we were waiting way too long for web pages to load. I DO NOT recommend this!

Pros: Easy setup. Easy maintenance via automatic download of updates.
Cons: very resource intensive for several minutes at startup. Basically consumes the system. Insists on Scanning every drive in the system whether I want it to or not. Unchecking the drives in the list does absolutely nothing. It scans them anyway!

I ordered this product several months ago from a "home use" program where I work. Not wanting to be left w/o the disks in the event I ever had to restore my hard drive, I shelled out $25 for disks. 4 weeks later: nothing. I emailed mcafee and they told me to "wait another 4-6 weeks." 5 weeks later I emailed again, this time I was told to wait (surprise) "4-6 weeks." Having gone thru this drill with them for version 2006 (which took over 20 weeks to arrive by the way) I told them to forget about it and give me my money back. Imagine my surprise when I was told that their money back guarantee was only good for 30 days! I emailed again to tell them that I never got the software and was only past 30 days since they told me to wait 4-6 weeks + another 4-6 weeks on top of that. After no less than 7 emails, I was "referred to the proper department." That was more than 4-6 weeks ago...

I gave up and downloaded AVG Antivirus, which is totally free, just as easy to use, and installs from a single EXE file (so you can burn it to CDROM just in case). After uninstalling McAfee AV my machine now runs much faster and I don't get annoying pop-ups from McAfee telling me to buy more of their junk (BTW: did I mention that McAfee software acts much like adware - constantly bombarding you with pop-ups that can't be disabled...)

Here's the kicker: AVG (which again cost me $0.00) immediately found 2 undetected viruses that have been on my system since who-knows-when.

For those of you who may be thinking about it: Don't try Symantec/Norton either. Their customer service is just as bad and actually charges money to fix their problems. Neither of these two companies deserves your money when a great freeware app is out there.

Running on a AMD Athlon 2400 system with XP home, 1024 Meg RAM, SP2, the Virus Scan Plus 2007 product. When first installed, "Manage Network" gave me a map of my router, main computer and laptop. After about a week, when I go to "manage Network", I get the message that the Computer's Protection Status is not being monitored because: the computer is not a member of this network, OR is an unmanaged member of thie network. I uninstalled the program, reinstalled, and all was fine for about another week, now same error message. The error message says to open security center, click "manage network" and then click on the computer from the network map, then click on "I want to monitor this computer"

This is nonsense, since there is NO NETWORK MAP displayed!!!

Customer service is very unhelpful, and questions on their tech support blog are not answered.

I am EXTREMELY disappointed with this product. I replaced Norton, which was a resource hog, but with the McAfee product, even MORE services and processes are loaded than with Norton, and my computer runs even more slowly than with Norton..plus this odd problem with the network saying that I am not protected.

I got this product mainly for my new laptop that has Windows Vista - this product is not compatible with Vista at this time. I wished I had known that before I purchased this virus scan - however, I used it on my home PC which uses XP and it works fine!