Serious Discussion Quick Play with McAfee
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Trident
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McAfee always seems to cause surprises with new releases. I downloaded the update today and noticed the icons had changed, so I expected the GUI to be different, but it's still the same old McAfee, just with updated icons. they are trolling lol.
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I’m uninstalling McAfee. The web protection has gone downhill so badly that I’m honestly not sure what the development team has been focusing on lately protecting users or figuring out new ways to bombard them with advertisements, pop-ups, and endless annoyances. It’s pretty disappointing, because McAfee was actually a decent product when it first transitioned into a cloud-based service. Then apparently someone had the brilliant idea: “Wait, we have a plan let’s spam the people who already use and pay for our product.”
And it shows. The actual web protection has taken a noticeable back seat to all the noise. What used to feel like a security product now feels like an advertising platform that happens to have antivirus features attached. I tested it again expecting to see some improvement, but wow, what a difference from the last time I used it. Unfortunately, not the kind of difference you want to see. At this point, uninstalling it feels like the better security decision not because I’m worried about malware, but because I’d like my computer to be protected without McAfee constantly trying to sell me something.
I’m so sick of every damn product demanding an email address just to use something I already paid for. Apparently, companies can’t just sell you a product anymore they also need to collect your information, create an account, and make sure they can shove notifications, marketing, and whatever else they feel like sending at you.
At some point, we need to start pushing back on this ridiculous practice. Not every toaster, app, gadget, or piece of software needs to know who I am, where I live, or what email address to spam. Maybe companies should try selling products instead of turning every purchase into an excuse to harvest customer data.
So yeah, enough is enough. If your product requires an email just to function, maybe the answer should simply be: eat it!!!
And it shows. The actual web protection has taken a noticeable back seat to all the noise. What used to feel like a security product now feels like an advertising platform that happens to have antivirus features attached. I tested it again expecting to see some improvement, but wow, what a difference from the last time I used it. Unfortunately, not the kind of difference you want to see. At this point, uninstalling it feels like the better security decision not because I’m worried about malware, but because I’d like my computer to be protected without McAfee constantly trying to sell me something.
I’m so sick of every damn product demanding an email address just to use something I already paid for. Apparently, companies can’t just sell you a product anymore they also need to collect your information, create an account, and make sure they can shove notifications, marketing, and whatever else they feel like sending at you.
At some point, we need to start pushing back on this ridiculous practice. Not every toaster, app, gadget, or piece of software needs to know who I am, where I live, or what email address to spam. Maybe companies should try selling products instead of turning every purchase into an excuse to harvest customer data.
So yeah, enough is enough. If your product requires an email just to function, maybe the answer should simply be: eat it!!!
For myself I moved from McAfee to ESET which does require a email etc but I get zero hassle from them after trying it out I bought a three year license at a good price, IMHO it was a good idea, McAfee is on a few PC's I look after friends & relatives, ESET for me is fit & forget & I really like the GUI, over the years I've used ESET more than anything & NOD32 for years.
I fully agree with you regarding those annoying upgrade prompts. But what is your view based on—that the protection has become less reliable? Have you conducted any tests? The results from AV-Test and AV-Comparatives still give McAfee a top-notch rating.
Fraudulent emails or URLs that are not detected on URLhaus are all I need to see. actually, did pretty poor. Prior to this little observation, I had McAfee installed for over a year and conducted the same tests. During that entire time, it never had a problem flagging any of the URLs that were listed in URLhaus. That’s simply unacceptable. Its phishing detection also seemed to take a hit. Overall, the detection appears to be less strict now almost as if it has been “dumbed down.”
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Please let us know how you go on with latest update though as its not on my two PC's I've installed it on others systems so will be good to know if there are problems or not
Here is the test I ran with McAfee using some phishing and newer spam emails. McAfee detected only 3 out of 33 emails, which is not a very good result. To put that into perspective, most other security providers would have detected the majority of these emails. Malware detection seems to be about the same as before, but McAfee’s web protection appears to have taken a serious hit. Its ability to block malicious and phishing websites seems noticeably weaker. McAfee needs to get back to what it was doing when it first transitioned to a cloud-based antivirus. Back then, it had strong overall protection and very effective web blocking. What happened? It feels like the web protection has significantly regressed, and I hope McAfee takes a serious look at improving it.
What's your version number 16.1.0.142?
I uninstalled old version of McAfee Antivirus and downloaded latest version but did not have luck with it.
After installation both McAfee and Microsoft Dender were conducting real-time protection so opening a program or a file was really slow. MD’s service also had high CPU usage during those operations. I performed few restarts but it did not help to solve the problem.
They have changed systray icon so it looks similar to Avira’s which I don’t like at all. Also, icon is only partly updated so if you let’s say run a scan it reverts to old one during the scan.
All in all, it seems to me like a half-baked product at the moment.
After installation both McAfee and Microsoft Dender were conducting real-time protection so opening a program or a file was really slow. MD’s service also had high CPU usage during those operations. I performed few restarts but it did not help to solve the problem.
They have changed systray icon so it looks similar to Avira’s which I don’t like at all. Also, icon is only partly updated so if you let’s say run a scan it reverts to old one during the scan.
All in all, it seems to me like a half-baked product at the moment.
As I went back to July today I noticed the tray icon had changed, but no sign of a UI change, anyway I removed it & installed ESET, pleased now I made the change after a month or so, no problems with ESET & they leave me completely alone which Is exactly what want after I've bought a product, unless I ask for help 
I did the same. Maybe I'll return to McAfee later when they complete transition to new UI and fix other problems.As I went back to July today I noticed the tray icon had changed, but no sign of a UI change, anyway I removed it & installed ESET, pleased now I made the change after a month or so, no problems with ESET & they leave me completely alone which Is exactly what want after I've bought a product, unless I ask for help
Can anyone else confirm that the web protection has been performing poorly lately? This definitely wasn’t the case a year ago. It’s gotten so bad that I’m starting to wonder if something is down or malfunctioning on their end. The antivirus itself still seems strong and effective, so I’m not questioning its overall protection. It’s specifically the web protection that doesn’t seem to be very responsive or reactive anymore.
AV companies have partnerships with many threat intelligence providers. So if McAfee's quality has really gone down lately, they've probably cut ties with some of their top providers.
People don't change. I just put it to the test. They think that just because the antivirus had a slight drop in its detection rate for phishing sites and malware, they already want to throw in the towel. As far as I'm concerned, McAfee detects all phishing sites perfectly, on par with Kaspersky. It’s very rare for McAfee to fail me—even if I download a malware sample from MalwareBazaar. McAfee detects it and moves it to quarantine. Personally, I don’t switch antivirus programs just because it had a bad day or because it sent a pop-up prompting me to clean up temporary files. BTW, I haven’t seen any notifications asking me to upgrade to McAfee Ultimate or to clean up temporary files since then. For me, McAfee is super responsive, has an excellent detection rate, and is as light as a feather.
Two of those links are from the same malware family, so of course they’re going to be detected the same way. That doesn’t really prove much.People don't change. I just put it to the test. They think that just because the antivirus had a slight drop in its detection rate for phishing sites and malware, they already want to throw in the towel. As far as I'm concerned, McAfee detects all phishing sites perfectly, on par with Kaspersky. It’s very rare for McAfee to fail me—even if I download a malware sample from MalwareBazaar. McAfee detects it and moves it to quarantine. Personally, I don’t switch antivirus programs just because it had a bad day or because it sent a pop-up prompting me to clean up temporary files. BTW, I haven’t seen any notifications asking me to upgrade to McAfee Ultimate or to clean up temporary files since then. For me, McAfee is super responsive, has an excellent detection rate, and is as light as a feather.
McAfee’s web protection has been pretty disappointing, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s noticed. To be clear, I never said their malware protection was bad the antivirus itself still seems to do its job. My criticism is specifically about the web protection, which doesn’t seem to have improved at all. And, as someone mentioned above, if McAfee really did drop some of its threat feeds, that certainly doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the web protection.
Also, saying that “people don’t change” is a bit overly dramatic. When I remove software, it’s not necessarily because I’m trying to get rid of it permanently or because of performance issues. Sometimes I simply like to test different software, and I’ve been doing that regularly since 2007. I get some people do it for those reasons you listed but that does not apply to this situation.
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