Customer Reviews

VirusScan Professional 7.0

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Virusscan 7 is big disappointment over the previous versions. The interface is clunkier, the background scanner often experiences a massive memory leak, which will eat up 700MB of Ram/Swap space before crashing, and it's a pain to get to the advanced options.

But my biggest problem was that if you EXPLICITELY opt to not install the firewall, Mcafee still puts a rudimentary filter in (just no GUI) that has a tenacious ability to hose your internet settings. Windows will complain that it is unable to create sockets, and as a result many server applications will not work (Apache, Telnet).

What can i say...i love Mc.Afee professional 7.0. It allows me to monitore all trafic in and out of my computer. The Virus Scan feature is constantly monitoring my computer for viruses and worms. Mc.Afee professional 7.0 is easy to set up and easy to use. Product upgrades are fast and walks you through the process. After you register Mc.Afee professional 7.0, you are signed up for 24/7 product updates and the best part is that it is free. I prefer it over any-other product and suggest it to anyone who wants to protect thee computer form hackers.

I upgraded from 6.0 which I liked. Initially this product pops up every day with a dialog box which must then be dismissed, asking if you would like to upgrade your product. If you say yes, it takes you to a promotional page which does not actually provide upgrades. Then a couple months ago, a software upgrade included "Security Center". With this, the promotional popups grew worse. This included a "Security rating" which is nothing more than an index of how much McAffee stuff you have and NOT how secure your system really is. They make it look more "scientific" with numbers such as "5.8" if you have virus scan and not the rest, but this is not a real metric.

The software is very intrusive and interferes with using my computer.

I have had NUMEROUS dialogs with McAfee to turn off these undesirable features. They do not read the complaint, provide incorrect information, question whether I purchased it (I did and from their page) and generally not even really acknowledge what is wrong.

I have nine months left to go on the update subscription. I am ripping it out and buying Norton .. that's how much I hate it.

This product works well. The critics who gave this product such negative reviews amaze me. I've never heard of people having problems with VirusScan to such a degree as these "experts". I have never had a problem with this software since version 3. I am an avid gamer, having built and configured hundreds of PCs. It works better than the Norton stuff, which has had some serious program conflict issues in the past.

I have configured VirusScan to work in many different situations with no problems. I've never had a problem with the updating programs, in fact its running right now to update my virus DAT file. I've also run it to update my entire program over the web last week, nothing bad happened. I do know that if you install this software in an unstable environment (where the hard disk is bad in spots, where the OS has crashing problems) then it only makes the situation worse.

The firewall works very well and it will crash Internet Explorer or Netscape if you don't configure it to recognize these programs. I think this is where the "experts" run into trouble. If you have a cable modem then VirusScan works even better.

I took away one star due to the QuickClean Program. Although it does do a decent job cleaning out junk files from a PC, I don't like some of the features of this program, it needs re-tooling in my opinion.

Just pay attention when you install and configure this program and you will have no problems.

This program works very well--it was able to detect some viruses on my computer as soon as it was installed.

It also helps greatly when downloading, as it IMMEDIATELY notifies you if you have a "worm" or other sort of virus. It has even saved me from other viruses sent to my computer over p2p software.

I have a decent knowledge of anti-virus software, but I haven't used Norton since Windows 3.11 (YES, 3.11 not 3.1) in 1994.

The software works as it's supposed to--it can scan every single file on your computer, skip certain ones if [for some reason] you want, you can query tasks, etc. It also has options like "file shredder" to totally erase data off your HD if you need that much security.

I honestly haven't tried auto-update with this version, I manually installed; but I have done auto-update with versions in the past.

The BAD is that although this program seems to use little resources--ocassionally (TWICE A DAY!) it eats up a TON of your virtual memory for no apparent reason. At first I thought it was some large files I was moving but I've done that several times after and the problem is not specific to that. This problem lasts at least 3 minutes--where your computer will slow to a crawl. CPU usage in "Task Manager" will remain low--like 10% or 12% but your "Page File" will be huge (500+ mb).

This may have something to do with the size of your page file--but that's a ridiculous glitch.

OTHERWISE the program is easy to install and maintain, it uses very little resources* except for that HUGE glitch imo. [Windows XP seems to operate at the same level as it does without the program.] The options on how to set this program up are fairly simple, e.g. "enable system scanning" to scan downloads, system files, etc.

*(The important specs--my computer has an AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 256MB DDR 2100, 40GB 7200 rpm HD + 20GB 5400 rpm HD, GeForce 4 Ti4200)

***EDIT: In case anyone was confused I meant I have used McAfee in Windows 3.11 and stopped using Norton's antivirus programs at that time. I've stopped using this program, but it can come in handy when getting rid viruses.

Also I meant that I manually installed the program and disabled auto-update [for virus database files] but kept it up to date. Auto-updating in previous software seems to have worked correctly.

I have Norton 2002 anti-virus on windows XP. Norton was disenabled by a virus backdoor.servu.30 and it couldn't detect it. I ran five other anti-virus programs to test which detected this virus, none could delete it as it was a system file, but simply quarantined the file. I used Stop-Sign eAthology which first detected the virus, Tuscan, bitdetector and a couple others. McAfee was the only program that actually deleted the file. Most would have wanted to reinstall their windows operating system and with a year's worth of data, this was a last ditch consideration, so I didn't jump at it.

I reinstalled Norton (after attempting to install a trial version of their firewall which detected changed files) which may have also cleaned up some bad files, however, I did this reinstall prior to McAfee's scan. By the way, if Norton is already installed, McAfee won't load until you remove it, so unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to run both.

McAfee's firewall seems to rely more on you to configure it and decide which web pages to allow internet access, however, it seems to work well enough. I haven't tried Norton's firewall, but it appears to be very thorough from the demo's I've seen. Perhaps I'd rate McAfee higher on the anti-virus detection/removal and Norton on it's firewall...would be nice to use these in conjunction, but I doubt you can.

I would recommend this product. I had no installation problems.

Unfortunately, I get a lot of viruses sent to me by mail. I use the Eudora Light mail client. McAfee VirusScan discovers the viruses Ok, but that's unfortunately not the end of the story. For each single incoming virus, this is what happens: 1) The pop-up window that's supposed to pop up and ask me what to do, actually does exactly so, and I click either "delete" or "clean", to get rid of the virus. 2) However, McAfee VirusScan fails doing so, and the pop-up window pops up again, with fewer alternatives. 3-10) This strange procedure with something failing and a new pop-up-window popping up is repeated about 10 times (note that we're still on the same virus!). 11) McAfee VirusScan makes the mail client lose contact with the server. 12) Checking mail again, the mail containg the virus is downloaded again, since McAfee VirusScan made Eudora lost contact with the server, and the server thus tries to re-send that mail. 13) Thus, step 1-12 are repeated forever! 14) I.e. the only way to check mail, is to deliberatly TURN OFF McAfee VirusScan, check the mail, and manually delete everything that look suspicous! 14) It seems IMPOSSIBLE to get any support from McAfee: I tried to use the web form, but I didn't get an answer; I tried the web chat alternative, but was disconnected after I'd first waited 30 minutes in the queue and then had typed in the entire description of my problem. I will NEVER EVER buy any product from McAfee again, that's for sure! This is the absolutely worst piece of junk that I've ever bought.

this product is the worst thing i have put on my computer to date. it installed ok but when i tried to update it lock up. it also caused problems with internet explorer and would not allow my home page to load. worst of all there is no support other than paying big $ for phone help or waiting for hours for email. they have chat support but it did not work correctly. i ended up buying norton and it works great so far.

What a waste of time & money. I downloaded & installed the product & then when I scanned my computer it said I had a few viruses, but it couldn't delete or quarantine them. Also, around this time the Mcafee icon & shortcut disappeared from my desktop. Tried the on-line support, but after waiting 1 hour gave up. Called the phone support (which costs $2.95/minute)and the technician helped me delete the viruses (very complicated & the call took 20 min); then I was going to have to reinstall Mcafee. It didn't work (& of course I was off the phone help line by then)! I spent many hours seaching the Mcafee website for helpful info and searching through my computer c drive uninstalling Mcafee so I could reinstall it. It never worked,I kept getting different error messages.. Mcafee is like a virus itself getting in and causing different system problems. I then went to on-line support where I waited 2 1/2 hours in queue until I got a technician who lead me thru a few steps & then told me to reboot (even though I told her I would loose her, she reassured me the problem would now be solved). It wasn't and she was gone! Even their credit card refund request site would not work right! I thought the problems might be specific to Windows ME system, but from the other reviews it doesn't seem to be. Worst product I have ever purchased on-line; I want back my 10 hours I spent trying to get it to work. If you are thinking of buying this product, don't, you'll be sorry! After reading the reviews of different products, I am going to get PC-cillin instead.

I lived happily with McAfee 5 for over two years and once I got a cable modem, downloads were a breeze. Then they told me my time was up so I decided to upgrade to McAfee 7. Well, I couldn't even download it! When I pushed the download button on their website, my Internet Explorer went down (note that my connection did not go down and I have a cable modem, so it wasn't call waiting). This happened FIVE TIMES!!! So I turned to the online chat help twice for an hour each time with two useless people (Steve Samson, you should be flipping burgers) who did nothing but spit out canned responses and ignore reading/comprehending what I had written. For example, you start off saying what version of Internet Explorer you're running and Windows 98, blah, blah and two lines later these robots are asking you for the same information. Their suggestions indicated that they had no real understanding of how their software relates to things like operating systems or browsers. I finally asked for a refund. This was after trying to download with Netscape Navigator too (also crashed). I have downloaded software and lots of other stuff from the Internet with no problems, so it scares me that these clowns think that I should be regularly downloading updates from them. NO WAY! Stay the heck away from my computer!