McAfee / Intel Security Discussion

McAfee / Intel Security

So in a hunt for another light AV, after seeing that McAfee AV has become light as it sits right next to ESET's low performance impact in the latest AV-Comparatives test results, I decided to give it a go. The license for the AV only was more expensive than the Internet Security Suite but I don't like these suites, just need an AV, so I bought it for $59 USD [ouch!]

When I first installed it, my Logitech G900 Wireless Gaming mouse started stuttering like no tomorrow, the UI was laggy, I wasn't having a good first impression.....

Then I reboot after the installation, ran a full system scan which was very fast considering I have around 5TB of data......

- 0 False positives of viruses detected
- 3 PUPs detected, but the good thing is, you can see what they are and hit allow all, very easy to whitelist them that way
- After the reboot, no more mouse stuttering and the UI isn't laggy anymore.

I bought a single license but was surprised to know that I can install it on all my PCs/Macs/phones and tablets......... anyone knows what's the limit? like how many PCs that I own can I install it on?

It's surprising how McAfee was known to be the heaviest AV / IS on the planet, and what they've become now.......

Also, I only bought the AntiVirus Plus, but I see it has a firewall built in, I don't know if that's just showing me the windows Firewall or its own Firewall, kinda weird for an AV only to have a Firewall


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I never use any paid Antivirus except Microsoft Windows Defender, just avoid sketchy sites reported as risky by Google Chrome, pronsites, torrent sites and downloading cracked programs.

 

Please update day to day experience in 3-4 weeks. I really want to find new AV. Currently I have bitdefender but it's becoming too bloated. I just need simple and effective AV without forcing me to install crapware (or in app advertising)

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NOD32 Antivirus is for you as this try to install its toolbar in your browser which you can refuse offcourse and it has a built in tracking cookies cleaner, when I ran it, it reset all my extensions back to default and all my bookmarks lost their favicons as if I never visited them before.

Uninstalled it and got a refund although it is light as heck to be honest

 

McAfee AV plus indeed include firewall and allow unlimited no of installs. I'm going to do a test run. I have old i5 which I exclusively use for trial software. I'll update my experience in 1 month. Because I need to find good AV before April...Planning clean install all my computers when M$ release their next major win 10 update in April.

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please let me know your findings

 

@downloads

After testing this for a few days, it has beat NOD32 in terms of performance, as in, it is lighter.

Once you install it the system becomes laggy and the mouse stutters, just reboot then run a full system scan and all is snappy again

Also there is an option in the settings to choose to scan files striking a balance between performance and security, or thorough (more performance impact), or light ( very low performance impact). I chose the light

Also, during installation, I chose custom and unchecked the McAfee Site Advisor, I don't need no site advisor daddy, just a fast local file scanning AV

I bought a single license for the AntiVirus Plus which covers all your computers / mobile devices in a single license, no a a bad deal

 

Initial system scan is very fast:



Also, when it detects False Positives (in my case, it caught only 3), it doesn't auto delete / auto quarantine them by default so that's nice touch, you can then whitelist all the detections in one shot very easily

 

@Phoenix Thanks for the tip. I will gladly test it.

 

Man, compared to NOD32, as you know NOD32 has a built in HTTP scanner which slows down internet browsing even if you add Chrome to the exclusions list, well, now with McAfee AntiVirus Plus and its built in Firewall, it's like I upgraded my internet, webpages literally load in the blink of an eye! loving it!

 

I installed this on two old computers and so far I love it. Biggest plus point is allowing me to do custom install. Which allow me to uninstall site adviser. Initially it slow does the computer but after 2 full system scans all went back to normal. Firefox also start loading pages faster.

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which reminds me, I love how it has a custom installer option and doesn't nag you or display any notification icon that X component is present or enabled like with ESET

Yeah it took one reboot followed by a full system scan followed by another reboot, and now the system is as light as if there was no AV installed

 

@Phoenix I had to nuke it for one reason - RAM usage that was too hight for my convertible device. It was some 250MB of RAM.

 

No offense meant bro, but one shouldn't judge how light/heavy an AV is only by RAM usage. Unless one is really limited on RAM, what matters most is, how does your system feel after performing a full scan and rebooting? is it slower than it normally was? What matters most is how the AV deals with on access scans of files as that is usually what makes us feel our system is snappy or laggy when an AV is installed. To me personally, I never looked at RAM usage probably because I have a lot of RAM, I just see how my system *feels* light or laggy.....

NOD32 / ESS probably use more RAM, but they need that to cache stuff I guess, it's still light as well at the end of the day

 

@Phoenix None taken, but I need an AV with low RAM footprint due to limited amount of RAM on my convertible laptop and that is the end of that story.

 

Then the lightest AV with the lowest footprint for your case might be Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus



Dunno if you've tried it before

 

@downloads

Please make sure when uninstalling an AV, to use its respective uninstaller to get rid of all the files/registry remnants:

McAfee Consumer Product Removal Tool v9.0.3024.0

 

@Papusan @donaldduck2004 @Donald@HIDevolution @Mr. Fox

Wow, look at how many processes the so called lightweight McCrappy Cloud AV is using....



then look at how many processes ESET need to make your taptop invisible to any virus....

 

I have never understood why anyone would intentionally use CrapAfee. It has been over-bloated garbage for as long as I can remember.

 

Have you checked how many processing cycles the whole Bloatware need?
Any worse than Symantec? Or is this the new performance hit king?