Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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116 of 119 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Essentially the same as versions 8 and 9., September 19, 2005
There are two components to look at in McAfee VirusScan 2006, also known as version 10: The VirusScan component and the SecurityCenter component, also known by many as the blatant advertising component.
I'll talk more about SecurityCenter in a little bit. First let's review the actual virus scanning ability.
I was surprised when I pulled out the Quick Start Guide (which is the only guide that comes in printed form) and it did not instruct me to uninstall the previous version of VirusScan first. The last two or three versions have all said to do so. Maybe McAfee has finally worked through the issues that installing a newer version over an older version has always created. But I'm not one to take any chances. I still recommend not only uninstalling any previous McAfee VirusScan product on your computer, but also uninstalling ALL McAfee products. The conflicts that have been caused in the past by not doing this have been too great and too severe to take that chance. (WARNING: If you do uninstall your old VirusScan make sure you disconnect from the Internet first. There are too many viruses and worms out there today that can infect your computer just by simply being on the Internet. You can reconnect after you have installed VirusScan 2006.)
Even though I uninstalled all of my McAfee products first, I was able to install, update, and adjust the settings in less than 10 minutes. I experienced no problems with the set-up, or with conducting several test scans.
McAfee VirusScan 2006 is, for the most part, the same program as the previous version. The changes that were made back in version 8, which include the reduced number of settings to adjust, the reduced number of levels to navigate through, and the "virus map" feature, have been left relatively untouched. One welcomed improvement is the addition of a PUPs, or potentially unwanted programs, tab (you can find this by clicking on "Configure VirusScan Options" and then the "Advanced" tab). VirusScan will now notify you when it comes across a program it thinks might be unwanted. You can then tell VirusScan to remove the program or to add it to your trusted PUPs list, which you can manage.
This new version of VirusScan also comes with one major "update" change. Starting with VirusScan 2006, McAfee is now making DAT updates available nearly every day, instead of once a week or so as they have done in previous versions. Configuring VirusScan to install updates automatically will help to ensure that you have the most up-to-date virus fighting capability on your computer. For those with cable or broadband Internet connections, these updates are quick and should not interfere with any other surfing or downloading you are doing. If you have a dial-up connection, the update process will slow you down a little bit.
One update issue that first showed up back in version 8 and is still present in version 10 is when you choose to manually update. When you do this, and an update is available, VirusScan takes you to a McAfee page where you are suppose to log-in to continue. The problem is that the McAfee Website is notorious about refusing to log you out, even when you manually click the "log out" button on the site. So when VirusScan takes you to this page, and McAfee thinks you are already logged in, the page will tell you that you are already logged in but will not give you the ability to continue the update process. This happens to me about 80% of the time I try to manually update. For this reason, it's best that you allow VirusScan to automatically update itself if possible.
In all the years I have used McAfee VirusScan, I have never once had a virus or worm successfully download or install on my computer. For that reason, I give the virus scanning ability of McAfee VirusScan 2006 a 5-star rating.
So why the overall reduced rating? There are two reasons for it.
REASON 1: McAfee's customer service is one of the worst in any industry. Their live instant messaging help is a joke. The people who run this don't listen to your problem at all. They are only trained to have you run through a series of steps. Ask any current or previous McAfee customer about McAfee's customer service, and you are likely to send that person into a fit of hysterics followed by an hour-long commentary on just how awful their experience was. The last time I called McAfee customer service to fix a problem, their instructions screwed up my computer so badly that I had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall everything. And once I did that, I then had to pay to talk to someone to fix the problem that I was having with their product. It took them 3 weeks, and five different phone calls to speak to five different people before I got the answer I needed.
REASON 2: SecurityCenter. This program wraps all of McAfee's products together for easy access on your computer's taskbar. It has also been the source of many a McAfee user's ire. The good news is that there has finally been some improvement with SecurityCenter. It used to be that when you started your computer, the McAfee SecurityCenter splash screen would tell you which McAfee security products you had purchased and which ones you had not. Many people did not like paying for a McAfee product only to have nothing more than a pop-up advertisement show up on their screen. During version 9, one of the updates sent out by McAfee changed the SecurityCenter splash screen so that you only saw what McAfee products were installed on your computer. VirusScan 2006 goes one step further and actually allows you to disable the splash screen. Unfortunately, if you open SecurityCenter it will still list the McAfee items you have not purchased and, as usual, cannot tell when other programs that do the same things as those McAfee programs have been installed on your computer. Most people will never have to open SecurityCenter since all of the programs can be opened by right clicking on the McAfee icon in the taskbar and selecting the program you need.
Let me condense all of the above into the following: The PUPs detection notification and tab, along with the increased frequency in updates, are the only real changes in McAfee VirusScan 2006. If your previous McAfee VirusScan update is about to expire (you get one-year's worth of updates when you buy any VirusScan version) and you can find VirusScan 2006 with a good rebate, then it will probably be cheaper to buy the newer version than it will be to extend the old one. Otherwise, it won't hurt to wait for version 11 next year.
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45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Essentially the same as versions 8 and 9., September 19, 2005
There are two components to look at in McAfee VirusScan 2006, also known as version 10: The VirusScan component and the SecurityCenter component, also known by many as the blatant advertising component.
I'll talk more about the SecurityCenter in a little bit. First let's review the actual virus scanning ability.
I was surprised when I pulled out the Quick Start Guide (which is the only guide that comes in printed form) and it did not instruct me to uninstall the previous version of VirusScan first. The last two or three versions have all said to do so. Maybe McAfee has finally worked through the issues that installing a newer version over an older version has always created. But I'm not one to take any chances. I still recommend not only uninstalling any previous McAfee VirusScan product on your computer, but also uninstalling ALL McAfee products. The conflicts that have been caused in the past by not doing this have been too great and too severe to take that chance. (WARNING: If you do uninstall your old VirusScan make sure you disconnect from the Internet first. There are too many viruses and worms out there today that can infect your computer just by simply being on the Internet. You can reconnect after you have installed VirusScan 2006.)
Even though I uninstalled all of my McAfee products first, I was able to install, update, and adjust the settings in less than 10 minutes. I experienced no problems with the set-up, or with conducting several test scans.
McAfee VirusScan 2006 is, for the most part, the same program as the previous version. The changes that were made back in version 8, which include the reduced number of settings to adjust, the reduced number of levels to navigate through, and the "virus map" feature, have been left relatively untouched. One welcomed improvement is the addition of a PUPs, or potentially unwanted programs, tab (you can find this by clicking on "Configure VirusScan Options" and then the "Advanced" tab). VirusScan will now notify you when it comes across a program it thinks might be unwanted. You can then tell VirusScan to remove the program or to add it to your trusted PUPs list, which you can manage.
This new version of VirusScan also comes with one major "update" change. Starting with VirusScan 2006, McAfee is now making DAT updates available nearly every day, instead of once a week or so as they have done in previous versions. Configuring VirusScan to install updates automatically will help to ensure that you have the most up-to-date virus fighting capability on your computer. For those with cable or broadband Internet connections, these updates are quick and should not interfere with any other surfing or downloading you are doing. If you have a dial-up connection, the update process will slow you down a little bit.
One update issue that first showed up back in version 8 and is still present in version 10 is when you choose to manually update. When you do this, and an update is available, VirusScan takes you to a McAfee page where you are suppose to log-in to continue. The problem is that the McAfee Website is notorious about refusing to log you out, even when you manually click the "log out" button on the site. So when VirusScan takes you to this page, and McAfee thinks you are already logged in, the page will tell you that you are already logged in but will not give you the ability to continue the update process. This happens to me about 80% of the time I try to manually update. For this reason, it's best that you allow VirusScan to automatically update itself if possible.
In all the years I have used McAfee VirusScan, I have never once had a virus or worm successfully download or install on my computer. For that reason, I give the virus scanning ability of McAfee VirusScan 2006 a 5-star rating.
So why the overall reduced rating? There are two reasons for it.
REASON 1: McAfee's customer service is one of the worst in any industry. Their live instant messaging help is a joke. The people who run this don't listen to your problem at all. They are only trained to have you run through a series of steps. Ask any current or previous McAfee customer about McAfee's customer service, and you are likely to send that person into a fit of hysterics followed by an hour-long commentary on just how awful their experience was. The last time I called McAfee customer service to fix a problem, their instructions screwed up my computer so badly that I had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall everything. And once I did that, I then had to pay to talk to someone to fix the problem that I was having with their product. It took them 3 weeks, and five different phone calls to speak to five different people before I got the answer I needed.
REASON 2: SecurityCenter. This program wraps all of McAfee's products together for easy access on your computer's taskbar. It has also been the source of many a McAfee user's ire. The good news is that there has finally been some improvement with SecurityCenter. It used to be that when you started your computer, the McAfee SecurityCenter splash screen would tell you which McAfee security products you had purchased and which ones you had not. Many people did not like paying for a McAfee product only to have nothing more than a pop-up advertisement show up on their screen. During version 9, one of the updates sent out by McAfee changed the SecurityCenter splash screen so that you only saw what McAfee products were installed on your computer. VirusScan 2006 goes one step further and actually allows you to disable the splash screen. Unfortunately, if you open SecurityCenter it will still list the McAfee items you have not purchased and, as usual, cannot tell when other programs that do the same things as those McAfee programs have been installed on your computer. Most people will never have to open SecurityCenter since all of the programs can be opened by right clicking on the McAfee icon in the taskbar and selecting the program you need.
Let me condense all of the above into the following: The PUPs detection notification and tab, along with the increased frequency in updates, are the only real changes in McAfee VirusScan 2006. If your previous McAfee VirusScan update is about to expire (you get one-year's worth of updates when you buy any VirusScan version) and you can find VirusScan 2006 with a good rebate, then it will probably be cheaper to buy the newer version than it will be to extend the old one. Otherwise, it won't hurt to wait for version 11 next year.
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76 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
McAfee has become my #1 solution for antivirus protection, October 26, 2005
Like many people looking for a solid and reliable antivirus program with a high virus detection rate to protect their computer I used to be a big fan of Norton Antivirus and the Norton SystemWorks programs. In my opinion the last decent version of Norton Antivirus or Norton SystemWorks was version 2003. Ever since Symantec started using a complex and buggy activation process for their software they have increased the number of headaches for their previously loyal user base. Every year for the past three years that legal and loyal Norton customers have tried to upgrade by removing their old antivirus software and install the latest version they have had to deal with activation problems, crashes, full system reinstallations, and updates that don't work . Symantec has had three years to work out most of the bugs in their antivirus software with its activation and installation nightmares and now with the release of Norton Antivirus 2006 it appears that these problems still remain as a major issue. So it is time to jump from that Norton ship because there is much better solution coming from a company that was one of the original innovators of PC antivirus protection.
McAfee VirusScan 2006 is now hands down the software of choice for those Windows PC users who are looking for a solid and reliable program with one of the best detection rates in the industry. To put it bluntly McAfee excels in most of areas that Norton fails. First of all McAfee Antivirus has one of the least invasive software activation schemes of any of the top antivirus companies. You only need to supply a name, email address, and unique password of your choice to activate the software. Secondly, as long as you completely remove all other traces of any your previous antivirus software installations such as Norton Antivirus from your system you should find McAfee VirusScan to be refreshingly simple and pain free to install and upgrade. Third, McAfee costs less than most other major antivirus software and offers even better rates for two year subscriptions (available online only) and for multiple computers (available online or as a three computer license retail box). If you use AOL Security Edition, MSN Premium or Verizon DSL with MSN Premium you already qualify for a free McAfee Antivirus and McAfee Personal Firewall subscription as long as you use their internet service. Fourth, McAfee works on Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP Home and XP Pro and is even available for many small businesses that use routers such as the SonicWall brand to provide automatic protection for an entire computer network. Next, although there are other antivirus programs that have a smaller "footprint" and use less system resources I find that McAfee does not cause the bloatware slowdown effect that Norton Antivirus does to computers. In the past year I even installed McAfee on an almost ten year old 200 mhz Pentium computer that was using Windows 98 First Edition. I simply enabled "executable file only" for McAfee's real time protection scanning. Sure it wasn't the fastest computer in the world but it worked well enough that I could use it. Try that with any bloated version of Norton Antivirus since the 2000 version and you will end up with a BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) nightmare. Finally, how good is McAfee at finding and removing viruses ? The answere is that it is one of the best if not the best at finding and removing viruses and other malware. McAfee VirusScan rates at or near the top in the independently run virus detection tests such as Virus Bulletin and is certified by ICSA labs for virus protection. My own recent experience has proven to me that McAfee is equal to or better than Norton Antivirus in finding and removing viruses and other malware threats.
Is McAfee VirusScan perfect ? No it is not and it has its own share of minor problems such as its reliance on Active X control for updates, product support problems reported by many users, and installation conflicts with other antivirus software that had not been completely removed before installation. However these are also problems that have plagued most other antivirus companies such as Symantec. McAfee VirusScan simply rises above the other antivirus programs in so many other areas that I have no choice but to rate McAfee as the best of the bunch.
PROS: It provides excellent antivirus and malware detection and removal. This newest McAfee version 10 detects and removes spyware (PUPs - Potentially Unwanted Programs) and automatically updates itself daily. McAfee is easy to install, activate and upgrade. It uses less system resources compared to other major antivirus programs. Two year and multiple computer subscriptions are available. It is inexpensive compared to other antivirus software. McAfee is annually one of the highest rated antivirus programs to be certified and tested by the major independent testing labs.
CONS: The program relies heavily on Microsoft Windows Active-X control and Internet Explorer for its updates. The complete total removal of any other antivirus software such as Norton Antivirus is required before McAfee VirusScan can be properly installed. In the recent past telephone and online software support has been reported as weak by many McAfee users.
CONCLUSION: If you are a discouraged former user of Norton Antivirus, SystemWorks, Internet Security or a user of any other ineffective or bloated antivirus software then McAfee VirusScan is probably your best choice for the future. I would recommend using a software firewall program such as ZoneAlarm Pro or McAfee Personal Firewall Plus along with McAfee VirusScan. ZoneLab's ZoneAlarm Pro is also available for purchase in two year and multiple computer subscriptions online. I highly recommend using the new ZoneAlarm Pro 6 since it integrates very well with McAfee VirusScan to provide the most powerful layered antivirus and software firewall security solution available. The ZoneAlarm Security Suite using a version of the Computer Associates antivirus program is very good and it is very light on your system resources but I still prefer the ZoneAlarm Pro 6 and McAfee VirusScan 2006 combination since I believe that McAfee has a superior antivirus product. Remember that AOL and Verizon DSL offer free download and use of McAfee VirusScan and McAfee Personal Firewall for users of their service so you should consider using those two programs if you want to go the no cost route. If you want to purchase the all in one bundled McAfee Internet Security Suite then you might want to select a custom installation of the suite without installing the "Privacy Service" since that part of the program has been reported to cause system slowdown and various other problems for users who have installed past versions. What about other antivirus programs such as TrendMicro's PC-Cillin Antivirus 2005 or PC-Cillin Internet Security ? I think that TrendMicro makes an excellent antivirus product and many consider it the best alternative to Norton Antivirus. PC-Cillin is a good value and it also does a great job at detecting and removing viruses but I from my experience I give McAfee VirusScan the edge as the better of the two. It is also important to note that the PC-Cillin Internet Security program does not integrate very well in combination with ZoneAlarm's software firewall. Finally, don't forget to install a good antipsyware program such as the free to download Microsoft Antispyware or the top rated Spy Sweeper program from Webroot.
THE BOTTOM LINE: McAfee VirusScan 2006 version 10 receives an enthusiastic FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS and becomes my #1 Antivirus software solution of choice for PC users running Microsoft Windows !!!
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