VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5 Bundle

by McAfee

Product Features

• Bundle contains Mcaffe VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5
• The easy, automatic way to keep your PC virus-free
• Automatic junk email blocker
• Auto scans and cleans your PC
• Defeats name-generating software

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000CE24A
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 2, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,235 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #39 in Software > Business & Office > Communication > E-mail > Security & Filtering

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Bundle contains Mcaffe VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5.

VirusScan. The easy, automatic way to keep your PC virus-free. Never shop online, download files or open email attachments without McAfee VirusScan on guard. Optimized for dial-up or broadband, VirusScan automatically checks for free anti-virus updates and program upgrades whenever you go online. Best of all, silent updates protect your PC without interrupting your work.

VirusScan:

• Stops viruses, worms and Trojans
• Auto scans and cleans your PC
• ScriptStopper and WormStopper
• Email & IM scanning
• Free anti-virus updates and upgrades during your subscription

SpamKiller 5. Automatic junk email blocker. Get the email you want and nothing else with McAfee SpamKiller 5. It uses state-of-the-art spam-busting technology – e.g., One-Click Block, Dictionary Attack filtering and predictive analysis – to keep inboxes clean and free of unwanted email, offensive content and identity theft scams. Best of all, unlike the competition, SpamKiller 5 updates its anti-spam filters weekly, so you always have the latest protection.

SpamKiller 5:

• Auto blocks junk email, even foreign spam
• Defeats name-generating software
• Instant content- and sender-based filters
• Friends List lets in legit email
• Updates anti-spam filters weekly

Note: McAfee SpamKiller 5 filters MSN/Hotmail, but currently does not filter AOL, Yahoo or other Web-based email accounts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buggy, NO support, total ripoff, November 12, 2003

By 

Bob Quasit (Woonsocket, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5 Bundle (CD-ROM)

There's no way to tell you how bad this package is in only 1,000 words. 100,000 is more like it.

SpamKiller puts "spam" into a separate folder. However, McAfee's VirusScan flashes warnings for each piece of virus-infected email which arrives in that folder, even though they have already been decontaminated by VirusScan. On bootup, I was getting 88 or more meaningless virus alerts, requiring two clicks each to dismiss!

McAfee took more than a month to figure this out. I wasted over 30 hours online with their totally clueless techs before I finally realized that my system wasn't massively infected - the whole problem was that McAfee's two products were in conflict.

Later, email from the McAfee Escalation Team was blocked by their own SpamKiller software, because it "looked like spam". When I finally got in touch with an Escalation tech, he wrote that he needed to find an expert in SpamKiller to help me...that was on October 20th. It is now November 12, and there has still been no word. McAfee has taken over THREE weeks to find an expert in THEIR OWN SOFTWARE, and they STILL haven't found one! This is incredibly bad service.

SpamKiller was also really bad with spam. It let a LOT of spam through, even after I'd set up some specific filters...others have reported this filtering glitch. It also marked a lot of good email as spam. This was totally unacceptable, of course.

The entire methodology of SpamKiller is inferior, because it primarily relies on a centralized list. Once the spammers figure out a way through the McAfee-defined filters, the entire McAfee customer base is open to them for another mailing. Individually-developed Bayesian filtering programs are much superior, since they reflect the actual spam that the user receives and are therefore not subject to a universal spammer workaround. I uninstalled SpamKiller and have been using a free program that uses Bayesian filtering (POPfile), and after a week it is at 98% accuracy, with the balance of error on including spam in my inbox - which is much preferable to losing good mail. As I continue to use the program it continues to learn and adapt, too. I'm very pleased with it. It's remarkable easy to use, too.

SpamKiller was slow to respond to new email (sometimes I could see that new email had come in with webmail, but it took SpamKiller ten minutes or more to receive it), and slow to process mail, too.

WARNING: Once you give McAfee permission to "auto-renew" your account with your credit card, it is not easy to get them to stop. Some people have had to make all sorts of calls and complaints. It took me more than a week to get them to take my card off the account, so that I can let my McAfee account lapse.

Taken separately, VirusScan is not a bad program. I subscribed to it separately for many years. But thanks to my awful experience with SpamKiller 5.0 I'm dropping McAfee altogether. If you'd like to know more, email me. I've got some stories that are pretty funny, if you didn't have to pay $65.00 for the experience.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rebate offers a joke, November 4, 2003

By 

R. Benson (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5 Bundle (CD-ROM)

I purchased Virus Scan and Spam Killer because of an offer they were running for $10.00 off of Virus Scan and $30.00 rebate on Spam Killer. I submitted all of the documentation - receipt, UPC codes and coupons. I was told they never received the UPC codes - not so. Unfortunately I didn't take copies, go figure first time. Took forever for any response, they refused to take back products or process request.

In summary, not a good company to do business with. Horrible customer service. Can't get through, takes forever last person I spoke to was telephone rep in Guam....

Stick with Symantec....

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars SpamKiller 5 is not an upgrade, October 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: VirusScan 8.0 and SpamKiller 5 Bundle (CD-ROM)

SpamKiller 4 is much better. I promptly reinstalled it after trying 5.0. SpamKiller 5 doesn't run in the system tray and doesn't notify you when your receive new email. The interface looks nicer but is slower and less functional. Recommend getting SpamKiller 4 while it's still available. (Update: One person told me they liked Norton AntiSpam, but all the reviews say it's buggy and slow, so I wouldn't recommend it over SpamKiller 4.)
As for the VirusScan part of the bundle...