McAfee's Newest stuff

I use Mcafee for my virus scanner, etc. I was promted this morning to "download the newest version". Guess what, it doesn't allow firefox to work, but the old version did and McAfee help says " You can't go back to the old version, just use IE. We'll get around to letting firefox work soon"

Nice.

 

I have always told friends (and customers when I had my business) to get rid of McAfee for a number of reasons. (Try to remove it the 'normal' way ... what a pain).

This just gives me another reason to stay away from it.

 

OK,

So what would you recommend inplace of McAfee?

 

Depends on how tech savvy you are. If you like to tweak and futz with settings and stuff, I'd advise AVG (buy the 2 year license, not the free version, keep that company in business) for antivirus and Zone Alarm (again, buy the license).

If you want something that gives you additional controls, but is easy to administer, go with Norton Internet Security. Easy to install, easy to remove, and if for some reason you can't access the web to update your virus files, you can download an executable that will bring you up to the latest virus detection.

 

I've just dumped McAfee and started to use AVAST! It immediatly found problems that neither McAfee nor Symantec could find.

It free, it's great.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

 

Another AV alternative is clamav. It's free, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do (stay out of my way unless I ask it to do something).

For a firewall, spend the money on a HW router/firewall/gateway. Software firewalls should be a last resort, and not a primary defense on the network.

ad-aware is a good way to check up on spy-ware installs, but prevent it by running firefox + adblock.

[sarcasm]And of course, the ultimate security suite can be found at http://gentoo.org[/sarcasm]

 

Speaking of Norton, can someone help me? I received a popup while browsing the other day...and got one of those warning popups that says "internet is trying to connect to IExp" (can't remember the exact letters) but I had a knee jerk reaction and hit "don't ever allow." Great going. Now I can't access any websites..it obviously was my internet explorer connection to websites. Then I tried reinstalling Norton, thinking maybe I could go back and resurrect it..now my whole computer is messed up. I can't recover it to a past date. When I hit system recovery, I just get a blank page. I've totally messed things up. I can't install my Norton program at all now...it says I have other Norton files installed. But I can't even do a search for those files, because I get the same thing when I do a search now...a blank page.

Do I need to restore my entire system now? I'm trying to do everything possible before I have to do that. All my husband's GPS files/programs are on it, etc. Arghhhh...

 

Thanks for this post, I was about to renew my sub with McAfee, but now I will use the http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html they look to do everything I need.

 

YAY! Another AVAST Convertee!

Welcome to the cult.

 

Yep and another one here!! No clue what I downloaded, but hopefully it is protecting my computer. Got rid of mcafee that came loaded with my new dell computer. Any advice on how I should use and take care of avast???? The little spinning ball looks cool and alive like it is really doing something and hopefully it is.

Lee j

 

it at least tells me it's scanning -- so I'm happy about that...and it is a very nice interface..AVAST all the way, for the records, I converted two of my geek friends as well

 

It is. Make certain you registered so the database will update. You can also go into the user interface and set up how it handles your mail and all that good stuff.

Oh! Also set your screen saver to the Avast! screen saver and it will scan your hard disk while you sleep.

 

My architecture computer experts told me to go back to avg.

So now I have uninstalled avast and have installed avg which I had on my last computer. I am getting dizzy with all this advice and installing and uninstalling.

They say avg gives the best free protection without using a lot of resources.

Lee j

 

Sorry - you can't leave the cult. The enforcers will be visiting you soon.