*NEW!*
McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010
One of the best-known names in antivirus software, McAfee has built a reputation in both consumer and corporate antivirus softare.
The latest release we reviewed was their McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010, which showed a few improvements from last year.
Unfortunately, we found mixed results generally and felt that the overall effectiveness of McAfee antivirus is still lacking.
The user interface is simple and straightforward, and the real-time protection has been improved.
IM protection is decent, but system resource usage and the antispyware component are still problems for McAfee.
IMPROVED FEATURES
Better real-time antivirus protection
Nice, simple user interface
Good IM protection
Installation was more complicated than it needed to be, and each time we performed installations in our tests, they always took longer than any other antivirus software we tested.
Email protection was better than expected and improved over the McAfee 2009 Antivirus, but was still only average during our tests.
The inclusion of a firewall is a very nice addition to McAfee. Most antivirus software doesn't include a firewall by default, so we're glad to see McAfee delivering true firewall antivirus software.
Typically, firewalls are add-ons or are available only in the complete
Internet security suites.
Unfortunately, their firewall has a fatal flaw.
A good firewall should work at full power right out of the box (or right after download as it may be), but McAfee's default firewall settings don't.
Instead, you'll need to immediately reconfigure it upon installation to ensure proper PC protection.
All-in-all, while the McAfee antivirus protection proved successful, it could still improve.
McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010 Features
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- Real-time Protection
Keeps your computer safe from viruses, spyware and other malware. Protects your PC 24/7 in real-time.
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- Spyware Removal
Keeps spyware and adware threats off your computer. Scans your PC for spyware already embedded on your computer
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- Email Protection
Scans incoming and outgoing email for viruses and other malware. Helps keep your inbox safe from malicious files.
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- Instant Messaging Protection
Protects your IM conversations from viruses and other malware threats. Scans Instant Messaging file transfers for malicious content.
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- Anti-phishing
Helps stop identity theft and fraud by warning you of suspicious phishing sites. Stops criminals from stealing your personal information.
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- Firewall
Monitors incoming and outgoing computer traffic. Your first line of defense against spyware, viruses, and other malware.
McAfee VirusScan 2010 Assessment
Here we've listed a breakdown of each category we've tested for McAfee VirusScan Software 2010. Each category was given a percentage rating based on those tests.
Antivirus Installation: 95%
It took almost 20 min to download and install McAfee VirusScan Plus on our (very) high-speed Internet connection--much longer than any antivirus software should.
You'll first need to download an installation downloader tool that gathers all the files you need for the actual install. We feel this is an unnecessary step that just makes the process take longer with little (any?) benefit we could see to the user.
There were no advanced options to choose from that would allow us to select where we wanted the files to install, nor which features to include. McAfee Antivirus installs where it wants to, no questions asked.
On a very positive note, the lengthy download
did include the latest antivirus signatures, so because the virus and malware definitions were up-to-date, there was no need to download them manually. Kudos, McAfee. We wish more antivirus companies took this approach.
Un-installation: 100%
You can easily uninstall McAfee via the Windows ADD/REMOVE Programs control panel. The uninstallation was much easier and cleaner than the install.
Even after the reboot, we couldn't find any traces of McAfee antivirus left in the registry.
Total uninstallation took approx 45 seconds. Now that's the way software is supposed to be when you uninstall it!
User Interface: 92%
The user interface (UI) is fully functional and easy-to-use. The design is well thought and straight forward.
Basic and Advanced options are available. However, they're quite similar to each other: the Basic menu just hides some of the Advanced options from view.
We did come across a few mousing and link issues during our tests that were odd but nothing that would interfere with usability.
Real-time Protection: 94%
During our tests, McAfee antivirus proved to be fast-acting when it came to real-time antivirus and malware protection.
McAfee successfully detected and quarantined all malicious files we tested against it, regardless of file type.
Even though most of the virus files were only quarantined (and not deleted), we can still give McAfee a good score for identifying and dealing with them.
Manual Scan: 89%
Manual virus and malware scanning wasn't as good as we hoped and is somewhat strange given McAfee's strong performance in real-time protection: only 75% of PC threats were removed.
We'd like to see a full-system manual scan do better than that.
We did encounter one problematic piece of software that McAfee VirusScan Plus couldn't remove. We tried several manual scans, but McAfee antivirus couldn't remove it.
Despite this one flaw, McAfee antivirus still proved to be average with its manual scanning. We hope to see better next year.
Resource Usage: 79%
McAfee's resource usage was pretty poor with real-time protection memory usage peaking at 90MB.
Memory usage was also higher than we'd like during a manual scan at 200MB. This even triggered low virtual memory warnings from one of our Windows test machines.
Real-time CPU usage was generally better at 0%-1%. However, during a manual, full-system scan, CPU usage peaked high at 85% for brief periods.
This is a fairly commonplace thing in antivirus firewall software, but we, like most consumers, expect better performance from a company like McAfee.
Hopefully, next year's release of McAfee VirusScan will do a better job of controlling these peaks.
Spyware/Adware Protection: 89%
The antispyware and anti-adware features had varied results. One of our tests showed that 75% of spyware was removed, but another test showed that only 60% was removed.
We rigorously tested McAfee's adware and spyware protection features, but both proved to be inconsistent.
75% is still a passing score, but the fact that we saw varying results during our tests leaves us unsure if McAfee can adequately handle spyware threats.
Virus Removal from a Pre-infected Machine: 82%
As we always do, we infected our testing PCs with viruses, spyware, and other malware, then installed McAfee VirusScan Plus to see how well it would respond.
Unfortunately, McAfee didn't do as well as we'd hoped.
McAfee detected 75% of viruses and malicious files. However, the antivirus software wasn't able to get rid of most of them.
During installation, the software scans for spyware and malicious files, but it can't detect malware or viruses that may be dormant at the time. You'll have to run a full, manual scan for maximum results.
What's ironic though is that the manual scan also wasn't consistent in detecting threats.
Email Protection: 96%
75% of suspicious email threats were identified when real-time protection was enabled (email protection only works when real-time protection is engaged).
Any IMAP or POP3 email client is supported, such as Outlook and Thunderbird.
We're always glad to see both IMAP and POP supported and wish all vendors supported them both.
For some manufacturers IMAP support is given second-class status to POP3 despite the popularity of IMAP among people who use traditional mail clients like Outlook or Thunderbird to check their email from multiple computers.
We're really glad McAfee provides protection to all email clients regardless of what protocol they're using.
Although email protection was only average, McAfee email protection didn't slow down our testing computers. We saw no significant drags while McAfee scanned incoming and outgoing files.
Firewall: 85%
It's always great to see true firewall antivirus software and not just standalone antivirus software; we salute McAfee for the effort.
The firewall is easy to use, but only because there aren't many features.
The user interface doesn't allow you to configure ports or protocols. The user can choose which programs have access or not, and traffic is managed by each individual program. You can also allow outbound access only.
Perhaps not all users need to have controls over the ports and protocols their PC is using; however, for those users that do, this is an extremely important feature.
In terms of performance, the firewall didn't detect any viruses with its default settings during our tests. Alarming.
After we set the firewall to "Standard" though, the firewall performed much better. All programs that attempted to access the Internet were detected including viruses, spyware, and other malware.)
Outbound traffic was only blocked if the default settings were changed to Standard, and no notifications were given in default mode alone.
While we commend McAfee for including delivering a true antivirus firewall software package, the fact that the default settings give so little protection troubles us.
Our concern is that most users won't know enough to understand they need to re-configure their firewall to "Standard" to get decent protection. Thus their computer, while not wide open to threats, definitely won't be as protected as they think it is.
IM Protection: 95%
All files that try to transfer through your Instant Messaging (IM) conversations are scanned for viruses and other malicious threats.
As long as real-time protection was enabled, the viruses and malicious files we tried to transfer to our test machines were successfully blocked during our tests.
Overall, we saw no effect on overall system performance when files were being scanned coming to or exiting from our test PCs.
Anti-phishing: 98%
McAfee's anti-phishing filter is designed to identify and block suspicious websites that may try to steal your personal or sensitive information. However, their anti-phishing filter works just as well as the anti-phishing in Google Chrome or Internet Explorer 8.
We commend McAfee VirusScan Plus for taking anti-phishing seriously, but we can't help but wonder if this feature is necessary since it's no better than the default anti-phishing you'll find in Chrome or IE8.
Antivirus Definition Updates: 85%
While we couldn't find any information on how often antivirus definitions are available for download, there are three options for how you'd like the antivirus definitions handled:
- Fully automatic download and install.
- Automatic download with notification for manual installation.
- Automatic notification with manual download and install.
While we love the flexibility and ease of choosing the settings, we wish we could adjust how often McAfee antivirus checked for new virus definitions and software updates.
Customer Support: 83%
The help file will direct you to the McAfee website for more support information. From there, you will need to run their "Virtual Technician" before you can access their chat or forums.
The Virtual Technician is a separate program that you'll be required to download and install. Unfortunately, the Virtual Technician program failed to install on several attempts during our tests.
Definitely not a great start to have problems with the very software that's designed to detect problems.
Forum and chat support are free and require an account to login, which is common.
For basic customer support like registration and sales issues, phone support is free.
But for actual technical support, McAfee charges fees per-incident ranging from $9.95 - $59.95 for live phone support.
We feel that free phone technical support is a must for today's antivirus software.
It's too bad McAfee still uses this paid support model when so many other antivirus software companies, including the best antivirus firewall software makers like
VIPRE,
BitDefender, and
Kaspersky all offer free phone support.
McAfee VirusScan 2010
Review Conclusions
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McAfee VirusScan 2010 Scores
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Antivirus
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$39.99
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| Overall Antivirus Protection |
89 |
| Real-time Antivirus Protection |
94 |
| Manual Antivirus Scanning |
89 |
| Antivirus Resource Utlization |
79 |
| Virus Removal (Pre-infected Machine) |
82 |
| Antivirus Definition Updates |
85 |
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Additional Internet Security Features
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| Spyware/Adware Protection |
89 |
| Email Protection |
96 |
| Anti-Spam Protection |
* |
| Firewall Software |
85 |
| Parental Controls Software |
* |
| IM/Instant Message Protection |
95 |
| Anti-Phishing Protection |
98 |
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Other Antivirus Software Ratings
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| Installation |
95 |
| Un-installation |
100 |
| User Interface |
92 |
| Customer Technical Support |
83 |
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* These features are available only in
McAfee Internet Security 2010.
McAfee has a long history of solid antivirus protection. They've gained a lot of marketing ground over the years, and mostly because they deserve it.
However, these couple of releases seem to've shown that McAfee antivirus is losing ground to their competitors.
Even though McAfee has been able to keep pace with core antivirus firewall software protection, there are places now where their best competitors are outpacing them.
- Very strong real-time antivirus protection
- Average manual scanning
- Easy-to-use user interface
- Good IM protection
- Far-from-ideal firewall
- Poor resource usage
- Poor antispyware detection
Their inclusion of a default firewall is impressive, but unfortunately the firewall isn't configured properly for the average user.
The problem with the poor default configuration is that it can easily give many users a false sense of security.
McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010 has a simple, easy-to-use interface, strong real-time antivirus protection, good IM protection, decent manual scanning, and a built-in firewall, included, too (albeit one with poor default settings.)
As a whole, it provides fairly good computer protection from the types of threats most users are likely to encounter.
We only hope that McAfee pays closer attention to spyware threats, resource usage, and firewall configuration in the future. These shortcomings--plus the lack of free phone support--are what hold McAfee back from placing higher in our
antivirus rankings.
McAfee VirusScan 2010
Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Windows 7 System Requirements
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- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or higher
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or higher
- CD-ROM drive
(NOT required for installation via the Internet)
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| Software
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- Microsoft Windows 2000 (32-bit) with Service Pack 4 (SP4) or higher
- Windows XP (32-bit) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher
- Windows Vista (32- or 64-bit) and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher
- Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)
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| System Memory/RAM
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256 MB
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| Free Disk Space
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150 MB
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| Email
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- POP3 - Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Netscape, IncrediMail and Thunderbird; Japanese only: Shuriken, Becky and PostPet
- MAPI - Outlook
- Web - MSN/Hotmail, or email account with POP3 access
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