Customer Reviews

VirusScan Professional 8.0

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Back in the beginning when McAfee VirusScan was a stand alone product, it was one of the best in the business. But then McAfee decided to follow other computer programs into the bundling game, and things went downhill from there. McAfee never could figure out how to bundle all of their programs into one, easy-to-use package. The worst came when their last multi-program bundling started attacking each other. The computer repair program kept trying to fix a properly working VirusScan program, causing the VirusScan to quit working. VirusScan kept trying to indicate that there was a virus in the cleaning program, but if you deleted that "virus" the cleaning program wouldn't work. And let's not get into what the cleaning program kept trying to do (first time in my life I saw a program try to clean itself off the computer).

McAfee, thankfully, got out of the bundling game last year with the release of VirusScan 7.0. Out of the box, this Virus program was the best in the business. Easy to set-up. Easy to use. Easy to update. Unforutnately, McAfee started tinkering with the program through the update features, causing many problems for their users. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a virus removal program when the program refuses to try and detect viruses.

And so I was looking forward to McAfee's VirusScan 8.0 release. I guess I'll just have to look forward to the 9.0 release.

As seems to always be the case with McAfee, they have improved some items and horribly tinkered with others.

First the good news: Installation and set-up was even easier than the previous version. In less than 10 minutes, the program was installed and all the settings in place. The layout is much more simplistic and many of the options in the previous version have been combined into the remaining options. This means there are fewer levels of links in the program to sift through to get to what you need.

In addition, I like the new "virus map" feature. This map allows you to track viruses around the world through several criteria: as a whole, by a current top 10 virus, by computers, or by files. You can also select an option that would allow your computer to anonymously send virus information to the map system.

VirusScan 8.0 Professional also comes with QuickClean Lite, which lets you clean off some accumulating junk on your computer, as well as McAfee Shredder, a great tool for completely erasing files off of your computer.

So now the bad news. To start off with, I'm not that impressed with the new McAfee SecurityCenter that is automtically installed. In effect, this is nothing more than one giant McAfee advertising tool for their Personal Firewall Plus, Privacy Service, and SpamKiller programs. Nevermind if you happen to have non-McAfee versions of these programs. Security Center is not able to recognize them. Unlike the forced update of this program they did with version 7.0, at least this Security Center won't lock your computer up.

The other massive problem with this version is the super increased time it takes to update the program. In past versions, the update feature ran off of your computer. It was quick, easy, and rarely gave you problems (except for those caused by McAfee themselves). The same cannot be said for this new version.

When you click on the update link, and McAfee sees that there is an update, you are then taken to McAfee's Website to complete the download. This requires you to create a username and password on McAfee's site in order to access it. Unfortunately, there is no option within VirusScan that allows you to program in this username and password, meaning that you will have to manually enter it in each time.

In addition, a simple DAT file update now takes at least five times as long to complete. Of course, this is assuming that your update program doesn't lock up on you before you can get there.

Each time an update has been available, I have had to make at least 3 attempts before I have been able to successfully start downloading the update. Each and every time, the first attempt results in my update program locking up. The second attempt results in the McAfee Website to take me to a page that has nothing to do with updating my VirusScan. The third attempt usually works correctly. Add on to this the previously mentioned time requirement to download a simple DAT file, and you can guess just how close I get to throwing my entire computer out of my third floor apartment.

If you can look past the blatant advertising and the problematic update feature, VirusScan 8.0 Professional is actually a good program. But I wouldn't blame you if you decided to either stick with version 7.0 or go with a competitor product instead. Hopefully the negative response McAfee is sure to get with this version will get them to clean up their act.

I uninstalled it an hour after I installed it. I upgraded from 7 professional and it seems like 8 has less features.
- You can't disable the splash screen like you can in 7
- You can't get rid of Security Manager (basically just their marketing software) like you can in 7
- You can't define directories to exclude like you can in 7
I wish I could give it 0 stars.

Pros:

-It can detect most viruses and updates are available almost every day

- It can be obtained free after mail-in rebates.

Cons:

- It won't always be able to delete/disinfect virus files that it detects

- Starting around a month before your update subscription ends, McAfee "Buy New Subscription" pop-ups appear, you click on the x to close and they disappear...... for 60 seconds. Then they reappear, you click on the x ..... a minute later it comes back. There are only two ways to stop these popups - go online with your credit card number to McAfee.com to resubscribe to their update service or uninstall the McAfee program. Customer service and tech support both refused to tell me how to disable these continuously reappearing and incredibly annoying pop-ups.

- Tech support is virtually non-existant, unless you call in to their $2.95/minute or $39.99/issue support lines. E-mails get canned, non-responsive answers. The FAQ section of their website has no responses to real questions and the "24/7" tech support chat system is always busy or non-functional - its unavailable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

- Having registered a previous version of a McAfee product may prevent you from getting updates on subsequent versions that the user legitimately acquires. I bought both Viruscan Professional 8.0 and Personal Firewall Plus, after getting VS Home 7.0 (both were free after rebates - the only reason I purchased them) and when the auto update tries to give me the current update of my new programs when I go online, it tells me "You are not authorized to receive this service." An e-mail to customer support got me back a confirmation that I am properly registered for the two new programs and I should have no problems. I guess continuing to receive the "You are not authorized to receive this service" response when I try to update the virus database isn't a problem for McAfee. However, it is a damn big problem for me.

-Who knows what sort of spy-ware McAfee installs on your computer with its standard installation? A quick check with Windows Explorer reveals that their uninstallation procedure does not uninstall 100% of the components of the McAfee software you have installed, that is for sure.

Avoid this horribly run company and its products. Even though it's not costing me any more than tax and postage after the rebates to re-subscribe, I think that's still the opposite of a bargain and I regret my decision to stay with McAfee. In retrospect, I should have gone with either Norton or one of the several freeware antivirus programs.

After reading the many negative reviews I was leery to upgrade, to say the least. However, since the product was free after the rebates I decided to give it a chance, particularly since the Norton reviews were even worse. So far, I've had no trouble with the new program, which installed in minutes and appears to work well. I particularly like the automatic updates since I don't have to interrupt my work to download them as I did with VirusScan 7. I was also pleased that the McAfee firewall that came with 7 still works and integrated seamlessly with VirusScan 8 Pro. The uninstall program made no attempt to remove it before installation of 8, which was one of my concerns. While I agree that the Security Center is a shameless sales tool, it's easy to ignore. And McAfee is hardly the only software company who charges for technical support. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a software company that doesn't charge these days. Yes, it's ridiculous for us to have to pay when we have a problem with their software, but it seems yet another annoyance and rip off foisted on us by almost all of the software companies, so I see no reason to blame McAfee alone for what is now an industry-wide policy. I've been a McAfee fan for years and VirusScan Professional 8.0 gave me no reason to switch. It's a good program.

I have installed and used 8.0 on two machines for several weeks now. Like all other programs you need to update it online after installation. It is working fine and no problems that some other reviews have shown. The quick clean lite portion works real well in getting old files out.

This box allows the user to put it on 2 seperate machines(...) WoW what a deal.

Been using Mcafee Virusscanners since almost day one of the product. There have been ups and downs with each one, and with v8.0 it is a big "down."

v7.03 was an excellent product. Ran great, no bugs. Got me through the horrors of MyDoom and several other attempted attacks but not one virus could find its way through the scanner.

v8.0 however is a different beast. The interface is actually very nice. At first it seems to be missing many of the features in v7.03 interface, but all of them are really there in one form or another, except the part that tells you how up-to-date (in days) your virus definitions are. I really was enjoying the new interface in v8.0.

...then the Big Bug!
The problem is the show stopping bug. Many users, including myself (on two seperate computers), are reporting to Mcafee through their forum that we can not send out emails with attachments over 500K. The email program timesout and it looks like an email server problem. Yet, it is Virusscan v8.0 that is the problem. Mcafee has confirmed this bug, since Oct 2003, yet they have not issued a patch for it in the past 6 months. They say one is coming in v8.1 but for those of us (and there are many) with the problem, the product becomes pretty much worthless.

I am very disappoint at the response rate in issuing a fix, and I do not recommend v8.0 until I see this "coming" patch. For now I have gone back to v7.03.

Hold off on buying this product until they patch it. If it fixes this issue as promised, I then will grant the product 5-stars.

Stay away from this montrosity!! Don't waste your money and all the time you will spend troubleshooting the problems you will encounter. Am having to reinstall my operating system and rebuild my hard drive contents thanks to this piece of junk software.

As soon as I installed this software on my PC, the connection to my printer is blocked. I was forced into a choice: virus protection or printer. I used McAfee's tech support. I was on-line with them for the most part of the next three days (even took a day off from work). Following tech support's instructions, I un-installed it, re-installed it, un-installed it again, re-installed it again, and over and over. This software has given me more troubles than all the viruses combined. In the end, I was told by their support center located in India that my case will be escalated to a higher level since they couldn't fix the problem. They asked for my phone number and told me someone from the next level would call me. More than a month has passed, and I haven't heard from anyone at McAfee.
If there was a zero-star rating, I would have given it zero. Stay away from software made by McAfee, and go buy Norton's anti-virus software.

This program should be renamed "The McAfee Virus", maybe
Norton will start selling a program to remove it.

o Brings the computer to a halt
o Installs it's advertising into your tool tray
o To get rid of the ads you have to uninstall the program
o Claims to remove addware and spyware and promptly installs "Avenue A" and "Double Click"

Don't buy it. If you bought it, return it.

I can only guess it prevents viruses from accessing your system by its systematic way of filling your entire hard drive with its own data.

Shees, I have 3.8GB of DAT data files sitting on my drive! Given its an older laptop with only 17 G hard drive, thats pretty horrible. Why does it not clean up after itself?

So if you have Virus Scan 8 installed and are wondering where all of your disk space seems to be disappearing to, check the dat file repository:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Network Associates\Common Framework\Current\VSCANDAT1000\DAT

You might be surprised at the sheer volume of data stored there. I mean, does a virus scan program need almost 4 G of data to scan for incoming viruses?