Nobody seems to be talking about this, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling. Just when I thought I couldn't find any more reasons to dislike and recommend against McAfee, it transpires (through multiple chat sessions on behalf of various customers) that McAfee release build versions of their products a year late for OEM partners. Simply, this means that if you bought McAfee through any source other than a retail package in a shop or directly from their website - including all those people who bought it after it was bundled on their laptops and those who got it free with their ISP or bank - you're stuck on 2013, which AV-Test and other comparisons confirm was terrible and slow, where 2014 is actually pretty good and fast. One must assume that this is a deliberate policy, because the 2014 client has been out since September 2013 and it doesn't take 10 goddamn months to adapt a program for OEMs. Oh, and you often can't tell you're on the non-retail simply by looking at your product or by looking at your McAfee My Account page. I only saw it (in this customer's case) when I actually went to download it: it was suffixed "McAfee Internet Security by Adobe"
This is what happens when you go near McAfee. Nothing against you personally, but I have no sympathy at all: you cannot polish a turd.
Nothing against me personally inferred, since it's my customers who keep choosing to buy it despite our protestations They polished it pretty well this year - performance impact, load times, interface responsiveness and detection rates were all improved - but it's stuff like this that speaks of a rotten core of cynical attitudes in their company.
Symantec.... eeeeew... *has flashbacks of using Norton* [I know the corporate stuff is a different beast to what's flooged to ye typical pissy world customer but still... bad memories...]
I can remember when Norton came in a big yellow box with a picture of Peter on all sides, and was actually pretty good. I used to swear by Norton Utilities.
I remember using a battered old x86 [286 or 386] with 'Norton Desktop Windows', can't recall if it was a set of programs for or just a straight-up knock-off of windows 3.1, it was far removed from the mess that was Norton Antivirus...
Yeah I still avoid Norton products even though symantec own them. Also I don't rate the regular symantec endpoint. But the endpoint cloud is extremely good
I think people remain attached to preconceptions and preferences for too long in the security software world, considering how often and how rapidly they change in quality, price and ethos. Norton Internet Security's one of the best products on the consumer market. It particularly exasperates me how many of our customers say "Norton? Isn't that really slow?" despite it being the fastest/lowest-impact retail security package. They're thinking of the 2010 and earlier versions, of course, but in security software 4 years is an eternity.
yeah take on the internet bareback baby! (I don't do that.) Yeah those were the good days. Now symantec just seem to buy things to ruin them. Like backup exec, when it was veritas it was a good thing, since symantec bought it, it's less of a good thing. Then with new versions they really ram it down your throat how much less of a good thing it is.
