App Review McAfee Ultimate 2025

[superleeds27]

I completely agree with you, at least dark mode would be welcome.

McAfee does scan downloads yes of any file when it is downloaded.

Spoiler: McAfee WebAdvisor Scan Downloads

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[piquiteco]

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Thanks for letting me know, it has now been corrected.

 

[Trident]

Glad that Trend Micro is receiving the love and credit here. I won't be in the cybersec field if I didn't start my career with Trend Labs. Now going for 20+ years purely on cybersec and I can say the experience I gained working with them really help me in my career.

@ Trident,
Are you a Trender too?

I’m not a Trender, though I’ve been asked many times If I am (outside of MT).

I’m still in the industry though.

 

[Fan-of-spyshelter]

Who own Mcafee today ?

 

[Trident]

Who own Mcafee today ?

No one. McAfee span off, the business division was acquired by Symphony, they also acquired FireEye and launched Trellix. The McAfee Skyhigh brand was acquired as part of the deal too.

Trellix is legally registered as Musarumbra LLC and all patents (IP) that Trellix launches go under Musarumbra umbrella.

McAfee LLC is now the company that deals solely with consumers, they launch their own patents under McAfee LLC (older patents prior to acquisition are automatically licensed for Musarumbra usage, this comes with the acquisition).

Newly launched intellectual property after the Symphony acquisition in 2021/2022 is not available to Trellix/Musarumbra.

 

[Parkinsond]

the business division was acquired by Symphony

just as Broadcom acquisition of Symantec (the business division of Norton).

 

[Trident]

just as Broadcom acquisition of Symantec (the business division of Norton).

That one was a bit more involved because Norton even before the acquisition, around 2015-2016 span off as a division (when Symantec was split by the CEO in 4 divisions and Veritas was sold, that time). So the entire STAR protection framework consisted of around 2500 patents, of which some belong to Symantec, others belong to Norton. Neither one of them can just “cross off” the rest of the technology and rewrite it over night.

So there were some complex requirements, who does what, who invests x amounts and so on.

The McAfee deal was a bit more straight-forward.

 

[stonjean633]

That one was a bit more involved because Norton even before the acquisition, around 2015-2016 span off as a division (when Symantec was split by the CEO in 4 divisions and Veritas was sold, that time). So the entire STAR protection framework consisted of around 2500 patents, of which some belong to Symantec, others belong to Norton. Neither one of them can just “cross off” the rest of the technology and rewrite it over night.

So there were some complex requirements, who does what, who invests x amounts and so on.

The McAfee deal was a bit more straight-forward.

You brought me back to memory lane here. Used to manage those FireEye boxes until Mcafee bought it. Then things became history.

The Trellix Endpoint looks very similar to the McAfee VSE thou.

 

[Trident]

You brought me back to memory lane here. Used to manage those FireEye boxes until Mcafee bought it. Then things became history.

The Trellix Endpoint looks very similar to the McAfee VSE thou.

Trellix ENS is McAfee ENS, just the name is changed. However, the McAfee Neo architecture which is in the consumers products is not deployed on Trellix ENS as the developments and patenting occurred after the acquisition. So Trellix ENS continues to use the old engines and massive DAT files.

The GTI (file, network, email reputation) is managed by Skyhigh. The McAfee consumer security solutions GTI upgrade actually involved migrating to Skyhigh.

 

[stonjean633]

Trellix ENS is McAfee ENS, just the name is changed. However, the McAfee Neo architecture which is in the consumers products is not deployed on Trellix ENS as the developments and patenting occurred after the acquisition. So Trellix ENS continues to use the old engines and massive DAT files.

The GTI (file, network, email reputation) is managed by Skihigh. The McAfee consumer security solutions GTI upgrade actually involved migrating to Skyhigh.

Ah...those DAT files. But I feel LPT$VPN is better than those. Hehe

 

[Trident]

Ah...those DAT files. But I feel LPT$VPN is better than those. Hehe

The Trend Micro Smart Scan Agent Pattern (let’s translate it for people who don’t know) is certainly better than the DAT files. The DAT files represent information necessary for an old-school AV to identify malware. Trend Micro SSAP contains highly optimised and efficient rules. Trend Micro only adds several rules daily and the pattern is very small (at the moment 50MB for consumer security solutions). These 50MB also include the Aggressive pattern, which is used in Hypersensitive mode.

The VSAPI also uses these patterns:
IntelliTrap Pattern: heuristic rules for identification of packers
IntelliTrap Exception pattern: whitelist for IntelliTrap
Spyware/Greyware pattern DA6: contains information needed to identify PUAs in shortcuts, registry and so on
Smart Scan server pattern: uses when the agent pattern rules are not sufficient to determine the risk level of the file

 

[stonjean633]

The Trend Micro Smart Scan Agent Pattern (let’s translate it for people who don’t know) is certainly better than the DAT files. The DAT files represent information necessary for an old-school AV to identify malware. Trend Micro SSAP contains highly optimised and efficient rules. Trend Micro only adds several rules daily and the pattern is very small (at the moment 50MB for consumer security solutions). These 50MB also include the Aggressive pattern, which is used in Hypersensitive mode.

The VSAPI also uses these patterns:
IntelliTrap Pattern: heuristic rules for identification of packers
IntelliTrap Exception pattern: whitelist for IntelliTrap
Spyware/Greyware pattern DA6: contains information needed to identify PUAs in shortcuts, registry and so on
Smart Scan server pattern: uses when the agent pattern rules are not sufficient to determine the risk level of the file

TM pattern file updates are cumulative and typically Mcafee uses Full update to it's DAT files (50mb vs 100mb)
TM also add and remove sigs depending on threat activities. Keeping the Pattern File at the minimum size also makes the AU servers ( active update ) less busy.

 

[Trident]

TM pattern file updates are cumulative and typically Mcafee uses Full update to it's DAT files (50mb vs 100mb)
TM also add and remove sigs depending on threat activities. Keeping the Pattern File at the minimum size also makes the AU servers ( active update ) less busy.

Yes, Trend Micro drops detections for malware that is no longer considered active or dangerous. The Trend Micro Smart Scan Server Pattern which for businesses can be deployed on a local machine is typically maintained at around 250 MB.

When the pattern is about to exceed 300MB, Trend Micro drops several thousand detections and brings the server pattern to the required size.

The agent pattern as well is regularly cleaned and is not treated as a “Recycle Bin” the way old-school AVs add signatures for everything.

 

[Jonny Quest]

The Trend Micro Smart Scan Agent Pattern (let’s translate it for people who don’t know) is certainly better than the DAT files......

Thank you,

 

[simmerskool]

... I have Web Advisor installed on three browsers: Chrome, Brave, and Edge, and it works on all three.

McAfee av offered the extension for firefox, but I declined -- later I was running Waterfox and wanted to add the McAfee ext, but it was not offered by the app automatically, and not in moz store.

 

[simmerskool]

McAfee Total Protection and LiveSafe (which I’ve been having for years and not using till now) were all upgraded to the new architecture (R100+ versions, previous one ended at R53, current is R131). They were also all migrated to the new online accounts and everything. The plus plans which McAfee so hardly tries to push, include NortonLifeLock-like features (identity restoration, insurances and others).

All versions under R100 don’t work, they can’t connect to the GTI.

The McAfee names (plans) are confusing, perhaps some mentioned here are outdated: on the US website https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus.html under products, three (3) are shown: Essential (the one I got) and Premium and Advanced. They "hide" two other plans: Basic and Ultimate.

 

[Jonny Quest]

The McAfee names (plans) are confusing, perhaps some mentioned here are outdated: on the US website https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus.html under products, three (3) are shown: Essential (the one I got) and Premium and Advanced. They "hide" two other plans: Basic and Ultimate.

It did take some clicking and ticking to find the Basic version, and it looks like it's only good for 1 device?

 

[Trident]

It did take some clicking and ticking to find the Basic version, and it looks like it's only good for 1 device.

I’ve used this site many times, 10 devices, 2 years for £22. That’s around $15 per year. It says license is global.

McAfee Total Protection

McAfee Total Protection - Premium protection for your data…

blitzhandel24.co.uk

 

[Jonny Quest]

I’ve used this site many times, 10 devices, 2 years for £22. That’s around $15 per year. It says license is global.

McAfee Total Protection

McAfee Total Protection - Premium protection for your data…

blitzhandel24.co.uk

Thanks, as this is what I was seeing on the US site for the Basic version.

 

[piquiteco]

@Shadowra Thank you very much for the McAfee test. As far as I remember, I hadn't thanked you yet. You can see that your tests are accurate. I only trust your tests; I don't trust the tests done by those companies that do tests. Your tests are very transparent. I knew McAfee would do well in your tests because when I got the licence, I started downloading a bunch of samples and phishing URLs, and McAfee always blocked everything. Your test confirmed McAfee's efficiency. Thank you very much for the video, well done editing, good soundtrack, as always, the music in the video is always handpicked. For me, it was perfect, keep it up.