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As someone who spent a decade running a very successful virus protection scheme for a very large multi-national corporation, I’ve probably forgotten more antivirus information (thankfully) than most people will ever need to know. That said, I can tell you that despite the cost, McAfee provides some of the best and easiest to use antivirus solutions on the market for both professional and home use.
I’m a huge fan of free, but to get a solution that includes firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and rootkit protection for Windows, you typically need to either pony up the cash for an integrated solution from a big vendor like McAfee, or cobble together your own solution using multiple free products that only do part of the job.
So, how do you strike a balance between cost and quality? Well luckily, you don’t have to because Comcast and AOL have partnered with McAfee to stack the deck in your favor for a change.
If you are a Comcast Internet customer, you can download the McAfee Security Center for free. The suite includes VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus, SecurityCenter, System Guards, Backup & Restore, and their Privacy Service.
Not a Comcast customer? You’ll be happy to know that you can download McAfee VirusScan Plus from AOL for free with nothing more than a valid aol.com e-mail address.
I’ve used both products and I haven’t been able to find another product that offers the same level of protection for free.
Some of What Is Included (for FREE):
- Real-time, On Demand & Scheduled Scans of Viruses, Worms, Trojans, Malware, Spyware, Cookies, and Rootkits
- Boot-Time Protection
- Intrusion Detection (IDS/IPS)
- E-mail Attachment Scanning
- IM Attachment Scanning
- Heuristic-Based Detection
- Script Blocking
- Auto-updates Virus Definitions
- Firewall With Inbound/Outbound Blocking by Program or IP Address
- Visual Tracking of Attacks
- Network Detection
- Secure File Shredder
- The Ability to Clean Or Quarantine Infected Files
- Quick Clean (cleans out registry items, cache, temp files, cookies, etc.)
- Parental Controls (limits the kids access on the internet)
October 24th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I think it’s great that Comcast offers a free anti-virus suite to their customers – now if only those customers would actually heed their advice and install it!
I was always a big fan of AVG Antivirus. From a non-specialist of antivirus such as yourself, it seemed to do a great job, to combat the spyware I generally used Adaware, and for a firewall used Zonealarm for a short period.
Then I wiped out the Windows partition and started using Linux exclusively, so I haven’t had to worry about these types of things, and hopefully won’t for a long while.
And while I think anti-virus, etc. is great, it can’t stop EVERYTHING – and thus the users have to be more educated than they are. They install anti-virus software and feel all warm and cozy because they’re protected. Then you get a call from someone who opened an unknown file and who didn’t think it was important to update their virus definitions. I know you feel my pain.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:34 am
The problem with the theory of using McAfee (like Norton) is that when virus and worm makers create these beasts, they already know to make it so that the main programs on the line (that they and everyone else are familiar with) won’t be able to detect it or get rid of it.
That’s why I stick with a little inexpensive virus suite by vCom called vCom System Suite. (And no, I don’t work for them.) It’s $40 at Wal*Mart and the best money I ever spent. And it’ll find all the crap your precious McAfee left behind. Take a try sometime.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Hey thanks for your comment, David. To each their own. If you feel better shelling out $40, then I say go for it, but you should know that the product you are recommending is not ICSA certified in any facet of Anti-virus, Anti-spyware or firewall. The ICSA is the security industry’s main anti-virus testing and certification body and both McAfee and AVG (as N0ia mentioned) are certified.
I was in charge of protecting 20,000 machines for over a decade in a very large international corporation. The reason that we never went with a small, unknown, uncertified product is that they don’t have the resources to get a fix out when a zero day virus hit. McAfee’s heuristics worked incredibly well on tracking down viruses, and they would get a fix for a zero day in a matter of hours because they have millions of dollars at stake when they fail. A smaller company may be good, but they just don’t have the team of researchers backing their product like McAfee does, so fixes can take them longer to get out.
I have no love for a particular company, but I know that McAfee works, it’s ICSA certified, and to get it for free is a great deal. If you’ve done a head to head on your software versus McAfee, I’d certainly be interested in it.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I used mcafee at work so I know it is the best but at home I used avast because I cannot get unto mcafee’
October 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
As of October, 2009 McAfee is not free on AOL.