McAfee is useless

[OVERKILL]

So I have a PC on my desk here that I'm cleaning up. It has McAfee Antivirus Plus on it with an active subscription. It had "PC Optimizer Pro", "My Windows Backup", Conduit, a variety of search hijacks.....etc. McAfee said the system was clean

Manual removal of those and I'm now running a MalwareBytes scan and it has found 13 entries within the first 30 seconds........

That's one of my favourite features about ESET: Detection of potentially unwanted applications. Obviously not something McAfee sports.

 

[Hollow]

Sheesh.

What's your opinion on Avast? I'm running their free version with Spybot Search and Destroy these days. According to them, my laptop is clear.

 

[redhat]

McAfee has been dead for years.

At work, we are migrating from Sophos to ESET. Really liking ESET.

Their support is decent so far and the installs have been going pretty smooth.

 

[dave1251]

I have to agree.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: redhat
McAfee has been dead for years.

At work, we are migrating from Sophos to ESET. Really liking ESET.

Their support is decent so far and the installs have been going pretty smooth.


Yup, we've had an ESET site license here for about 3 years now and I'm really fond of it. This is a computer that belongs to the mom of one of our employees, I told him I'd clean it up for him. It is a disaster.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Hollow
Sheesh.

What's your opinion on Avast? I'm running their free version with Spybot Search and Destroy these days. According to them, my laptop is clear.


Use ESET's free online scanner and see if it finds anything. If it does, well, you can then form your own opinion of Avast

 

[BISCUT]

Originally Posted By: Hollow
Sheesh.

What's your opinion on Avast? I'm running their free version with Spybot Search and Destroy these days. According to them, my laptop is clear.


I'm using Avast as well. Interested to hear from other in the know!

 

[Drew99GT]

http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=133160

Avast is top notch in detection; it's for sure the best free product out there. If you're careful about what you download and make sure your software is always up to date (something Avast does for you), you likely won't get infected. PUPs and browser hijackers now adays are almost always the users fault by downloaded freeware software or clicking on email links/downloads etc. Something my Dad still does all the time, which is why I used virtulaization to deal with it.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Drew99GT


http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=133160

Avast is top notch in detection; it's for sure the best free product out there. If you're careful about what you download and make sure your software is always up to date (something Avast does for you), you likely won't get infected. PUPs and browser hijackers now adays are almost always the users fault by downloaded freeware software or clicking on email links/downloads etc. Something my Dad still does all the time, which is why I used virtulaization to deal with it.


Didn't Bitdefender rank higher in detection? It also seems a lot lighter weight. I find Avast and in particular AVG to be quite bloated.

 

[Drew99GT]

Yea, Bitdefender does quite well, but too many people complain about it being buggy.

I do find Avast to be a little heavy; it's currently using 20,000 K of memory on my laptop, but it seems to slow the boot time and it affects streaming video.

 

[JC1]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
So I have a PC on my desk here that I'm cleaning up. It has McAfee Antivirus Plus on it with an active subscription. It had "PC Optimizer Pro", "My Windows Backup", Conduit, a variety of search hijacks.....etc. McAfee said the system was clean

Manual removal of those and I'm now running a MalwareBytes scan and it has found 13 entries within the first 30 seconds........

That's one of my favourite features about ESET: Detection of potentially unwanted applications. Obviously not something McAfee sports.


I think we need to come up with a "Used Software Bloatware Analysis tool" (Aka Bloat-Tube). The electronic PC version of a UAO. Let's also add Norton to the useless list.

Regards, JC.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
I find Avast and in particular AVG to be quite bloated.

AVG's prior versions were in fact resource intensive, but the current 2014 Free version that I'm using on two machines seems very good in that respect.

 

[ClutchDisc]

Originally Posted By: Hollow
Sheesh.

What's your opinion on Avast? I'm running their free version with Spybot Search and Destroy these days. According to them, my laptop is clear.

Avast is the best! Their free version is really good. I'm going to school for IT and my instructors say Avast is the best too. I've been running it for over 8 months now, it's been great!

OP: I just spent last night cleaning off someones computer. It didn't have any antivirus on it!!! This computer had everything you just mentioned and then some...I removed about 30 different types of malware, spyware, viruses...then ran malwarebytes and it picked up about 60 more pieces of malware. Person I cleaned it up for complained that it was slow....Yeah when you have 20 viruses, 60 types of malware, adware, spyware on your computer it's gonna be a little slow...

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Had McAfee last year for free from ATT Uverse.
ESET Rocks much gooder!

It works the bestest for me!!

 

[BearZDefect]

I bought a 10 user license of Bit Defender a couple of years ago for a group. It had decent reviews at the time. Nearly every user found it slowed their computer and made a frequent nuisance of itself. MSE might not be the best, but I suggested those users try (the free) MSE instead. They had no problems with MSE. Bit Defender was a complete waste of money - not merely ineffective, but offensive.

Back on the original topic, I don't understand how Intel bought McAfee and let it become such a useless lump. But I confess I haven't searched for an anwer.

 

[Mystic]

I thought when Intel bought McAfee that McAfee would finally become good again. It did not. I have not used McAfee for several years. I think it would be best if McAfee just went out of business.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
I bought a 10 user license of Bit Defender a couple of years ago for a group. It had decent reviews at the time. Nearly every user found it slowed their computer and made a frequent nuisance of itself. MSE might not be the best, but I suggested those users try (the free) MSE instead. They had no problems with MSE. Bit Defender was a complete waste of money - not merely ineffective, but offensive.

Back on the original topic, I don't understand how Intel bought McAfee and let it become such a useless lump. But I confess I haven't searched for an anwer.


MSE is even more useless than McAfee. I've had machines riddled with adware/malware/spyware and MSE was oblivious. Installed ESET and it had a fit, removing all of it.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
I thought when Intel bought McAfee that McAfee would finally become good again. It did not. I have not used McAfee for several years. I think it would be best if McAfee just went out of business.


I had high hopes due to this as well. I'm quite fond of Intel. I don't feel they've invested much (anything?) into McAfee to make it competitive with the best products on the market like ESET and Kaspersky.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
Originally Posted By: Hollow
Sheesh.

What's your opinion on Avast? I'm running their free version with Spybot Search and Destroy these days. According to them, my laptop is clear.

Avast is the best! Their free version is really good. I'm going to school for IT and my instructors say Avast is the best too. I've been running it for over 8 months now, it's been great!

OP: I just spent last night cleaning off someones computer. It didn't have any antivirus on it!!! This computer had everything you just mentioned and then some...I removed about 30 different types of malware, spyware, viruses...then ran malwarebytes and it picked up about 60 more pieces of malware. Person I cleaned it up for complained that it was slow....Yeah when you have 20 viruses, 60 types of malware, adware, spyware on your computer it's gonna be a little slow...

I don't agree with Avast being the best, though I used to many years ago (for free solutions). I currently think the free Bitdefender product is better. But that's my personal opinion. I also think ESET beats them both handily, but of course it isn't free.

Malwarebytes total on this McAfee "protected" PC was 66 infections (this is AFTER I manually removed Conduit and a few others, which I don't find MWB completely gets rid of) including various PUP's, Adware, Search Proxies, Redirectors....etc. Absolutely unbelievable!

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

McAfee is rubbish. Ever since 4.6 version it's been only so-so.

Avast & AVG I've been pulling from machines, replacing with Vipre. Vipre finds things immediately, just like ESET after any of these are on a machine.

Avast & AVG used to be really good products but it seems like they've slipped. Not as bad as McAfee or WebRoot, but still not at the top of their game.