Battle Trend micro or Mcafee ?

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Trend Micro or Mcafee
Both are good options with their own strengths. Trend Micro offers robust protection and a user-friendly interface. McAfee, on the other hand, provides comprehensive coverage and supports unlimited devices. Your choice should depend on your specific needs and preferences.
 
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I have used both on a trial basis previously, and both are pretty good. Both are cloud AVs, so they will be light, much lighter than Bitdefender. And both protections are good as well.

However, according to AV Comparatives, Trend Micro has much more false positives than McAfee. In fact, the worst of any they tested. Real-World Protection Test February-May 2025

So with that in mind, I favour McAfee over Trend Micro.
 
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KnownStormChaser said:
I have used both on a trial basis previously, and both are pretty good. Both are cloud AVs, so they will be light, much lighter than Bitdefender. And both protections are good as well.

However, according to AV Comparatives, Trend Micro has much more false positives than McAfee. In fact, the worst of any they tested. Real-World Protection Test February-May 2025

So with that in mind, I favour McAfee over Trend Micro.
Click to expand...

I've wondered though if it's tied to TM entering hypersensitive mode during the test due to the quantity of threats detected. In AV Comparatives False Alarm tests TM will generate fewer FPs than ESET.

False Alarm Test March 2025
False Alarm Test September 2024
 
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andytan said:
I've wondered though if it's tied to TM entering hypersensitive mode during the test due to the quantity of threats detected. In AV Comparatives False Alarm tests TM will generate fewer FPs than ESET.

False Alarm Test March 2025
False Alarm Test September 2024
Click to expand...
Good question, does it enter that mode automatically? I thought it had to be enabled by the user?

Or since those tests were from several months ago, I wonder if TM recently made their engine more aggressive at the sacrifice of FPs?
 
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TuxTalk said:
Trend Micro for sure !
Never any FP !

Never listen to AV-C ~! Trust the tests here !
Click to expand...
malwaretips.com

App Review - Trend Micro Maximum Security 2025

Trend Micro is a well-known Japanese IT security company. Relatively widely used in companies and schools, it was one of the first to bet on the 100% Cloud in 2011, switching its software from PC-Cillin to Titanium products (recently modified). For 2025 as in other years, Trend is keeping to...
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TuxTalk said:
malwaretips.com

App Review - Trend Micro Maximum Security 2025

Trend Micro is a well-known Japanese IT security company. Relatively widely used in companies and schools, it was one of the first to bet on the 100% Cloud in 2011, switching its software from PC-Cillin to Titanium products (recently modified). For 2025 as in other years, Trend is keeping to...
malwaretips.com malwaretips.com
Click to expand...
I mean that review does TM no favours? The McAfee review beats that one, massively.
 
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I pick McAfee, it protects you better.

malwaretips.com

App Review - McAfee Ultimate 2025

McAfee is an American antivirus that, like Norton, is often found on computers assembled by major brands. Like its competitor Norton, McAfee has had a bad reputation for many years: heavy, inefficient, bug-ridden and, above all, hell to uninstall. Bought out by Intel, McAfee has evolved in...
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malwaretips.com

App Review - Trend Micro Maximum Security 2025

Trend Micro is a well-known Japanese IT security company. Relatively widely used in companies and schools, it was one of the first to bet on the 100% Cloud in 2011, switching its software from PC-Cillin to Titanium products (recently modified). For 2025 as in other years, Trend is keeping to...
malwaretips.com malwaretips.com
 
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McAfee vs Trend Micro comparison:

User experience: Trend Micro is easier to use, less muss and fuss, more focus on core security features.
McAfee has evolved but it offers more features which DO require some setup to start moving.
Winner: Trend Micro

File Detection:
Both Trend Micro and McAfee feature the following engines:
Local heuristic rules tied predominantly to emulator (Trend Micro VSX vs McAfee Neo).
Cloud-based engine, when local rules are insufficient.
AI-based engine called on scripts, office files, executables and modules. For McAfee that’s RealProtect, for Trend Micro that’s Advanced Threat Scan Engine.
McAfee however also features local trust detection repository that can identify safe files when there is no cloud, YARA rules as well as local machine learning models. Trend Micro has no Yara rules and no local models.

Winner: McAfee

Behavuoural-based detection and advanced attacks blocking:
Both McAfee and Trend Micro use policy enforcement and AI in their behavioural-based engines. McAfee uses advanced events reattribution (as of recently) to cope with fileless attacks. Trend Micro uses daily-updated policies and in hypersensitive mode, aggressive detections.
Winner: tie

Performance:
Trend Micro does have minor performance impact, on idle it usually does draw 5-6% CPU, though the usage is negligible.
McAfee is less active in terms of CPU usage (usually under 1% in idle)
Memory usage for both is around 200MB.
Winner:Tie

Online protection:
Tie as well, McAfee recently got several patents for phishing detection using favicons, computer vision and other means. Trend Micro has had such patents 10 years plus.

You will get efficient protection with both. All in all, very similar products.
 
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Trendmicro will have faster scans after you do the first full scan and wait 24 hours. Trendmicro does do faster scans than mcafee as they have a big database of safe files they don't scan. Mcafee has improved scan speed though.
 
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nickstar1 said:
Trendmicro will have faster scans after you do the first full scan and wait 24 hours. Trendmicro does do faster scans than mcafee as they have a big database of safe files they don't scan. Mcafee has improved scan speed though.
Click to expand...
McAfee also has insanely large safe files database and as I mentioned, local trust repository for both Neo engines and the AI engine. McAfee has more users than Trend Micro and hence, more telemetry.

Both Trend Micro and McAfee perform pre-execution AI (static analysis) (ATSE & RealProtect pre-execution) only on low-prevalence and low reputation files.

McAfee also collects the reputation of archives (archives related to known malware can be detected even when password-protected).
 
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vonvon said:
I've been reading all the latest posts about Trend or MCAfee carefully. On an average laptop, my BitDefender license is expiring. I'm not sure how to choose between Trend or MCAfee to replace it; their operating principles seem roughly similar... What do you recommend?
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I've used Trendmicro on VM for about a month. I find it likeable and not annoying. I only just installed McAfee yesterday on different VM and I am running it now, but just too early for me to have an accurate assessment. See my initial install comments: post install McAfee seems fine, although it just gave me a big ugly popup to Activate its vpn. IMO Trend is nicely quiet and I find its occasional popups expected and helpful. I cannot evaluate these 2 in terms of protection or false positives (so far none for TM). @Shadowra's videos are excellent. @Trident seems to have good things to say about McAfee. Simple answer, IMO so far both seem good. If and when McAfee quiets down, I'll like it better. (Neither is my first choice).
 
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