Intel Dropping McAfee Branding

[exfileme]

The software is expected to be called Intel Security.

Intel Dropping McAfee Branding : Read more

 

[ferooxidan]

I think all other people who doesn't read news about IT and a little vague about tech world will have thought like this: Intel Security things will be even worse naming than McAfee because they will start to think it is something that doesn't really that important in your system just like Microsoft Defender.

 

[therealduckofdeath]

"IT illiterate" recognises brands too. My father who's almost 70 still insists on subscribing on McAfee. Knowing brands and knowing how a computer actually works aren't the same thing, and McAfee has been around since the dawn of the interwebz...

 

[sykozis]

This was announced Tuesday morning at the beginning of CES 2014. Why is Tom's only NOW reporting it? Why not report it the day it was announced? Not like anything else they actually paid attention to at CES 2014 was really worth reporting anyway....

 

[aevm]

Intel isn't exactly known as a software producer. This move will hurt sales of their antivirus.

 

[sykozis]

Can't hurt sales any more than the product has....granted the product is actually getting better since Intel took over. It's file detection rate is on par with Kaspersky, Trend Micro and BitDefender these days. The only problem areas are false positives (they are doing better than AVG, Symantec and Vipre in that area) and stability (which will vary by system for every security product on the market). McAfee achieved a rating of "Advanced" from AV-Comparatives in Dec 2013 for the real-world tests with an overall detection rate of 98.7% for the 4 month period and 20 false positives. AVG, Symantec and Vipre had 28, 37 and 37 false positives, respectively.... So, McAfee is in fact improving.....just not as fast as some of us would like to see. Their latest products do perform quite well in tests conducted using Windows8 though.

 

[aevm]

Yeah, I've been doing research recently to pick an antivirus. I went with BitDefender. From what I've read, McAfee catches about 83% of the viruses caught by BitDefender. I hope Intel makes it competitive again.

 

[sykozis]

I've been researching for the last week after an incident with a malware infested link my wife found on facebook. Even with Kaspersky configured to be as strict and secure as possible, the malware had no issue getting in and establishing itself. From my personal experience, as great as Kaspersky appears to do in every lab test, it seems to fail more often than not in real world usage.

 

[Morbus]

There's no real substitute to good internet usage. Blocking ads, blocking javascript by default and blocking plugins by default, a well known antivirus that doesn't bog down your machine, running untrusted software in a virtual machine or sandbox, and you're set.Of course computer illiterates will have loads of issues with security. That's because they don't bother educating themselves the tiniest bit. I don't pity them for their mishaps.I, for one, cringe and run away whenever I see a computer illiterate with security problems. Run man, run! I make it a rule not to help friends with those issues. It's either format c: or nothing.

 

[belardo]

McAfee has been crap for years... and very crappy today. Its marginally better than "Cheap" tech support India that installs on people peoples computers. I think by 1998, it was getting bad.That said... the video is FUNNY as hell.Doesn't matter than intel owns this garbage.PS: This new liner article blogging thingy is confusing... its sucks... when does the article end... thinking is hard.I'd rather buy Anti-Virus software from the real McAfee - even if it didnt do anything.

 

[DanDustEmOff]

What annoys me is that nearly all anti virus programs no longer remove stuff. They make you phone a premium number and buy a 1 time removal that wouldn't be there if their progam did it's job properly. This seems like acommon trend. If anyone knows of a proper security suit please let me know.On a side note many lol's at the Mcaffe video.

 

[dimar]

If anyone knows of a proper security suit please let me know.On a side note many lol's at the Mcaffe video.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware.

 

[Morbus]

What annoys me is that nearly all anti virus programs no longer remove stuff. They make you phone a premium number and buy a 1 time removal that wouldn't be there if their progam did it's job properly. This seems like acommon trend. If anyone knows of a proper security suit please let me know.On a side note many lol's at the Mcaffe video.

I use avira and I recommend it. Avast! is good. Sometimes. For some people... Avira has really surprised me though. I used ESET NOD32 up to a year ago.

 

[sykozis]

McAfee has been crap for years... and very crappy today. Its marginally better than "Cheap" tech support India that installs on people peoples computers. I think by 1998, it was getting bad.That said... the video is FUNNY as hell.Doesn't matter than intel owns this garbage.PS: This new liner article blogging thingy is confusing... its sucks... when does the article end... thinking is hard.I'd rather buy Anti-Virus software from the real McAfee - even if it didnt do anything.

Sounds like you get all of your information from PCMag....who appears to get paid for their antivirus reviews. Regardless of how poorly Norton does in every lab test, PCMag reviews seem to paint them as the most capable product on the market, followed by Webroot (who also does very poorly in lab tests). McAfee, as reviewed by AV-Comparatives, isn't nearly as bad as you make them out to be. AVG has a lower detection rate, a higher false-positive rate and a lower removal rate yet it's among the most recommended antivirus apps on this site.

Antivirus testing has become a joke. You can read lab results from the major test labs (VirusBulletin, WestCoast Labs, AV-Test, AV-Comparatives) and get a pretty good idea of how the software does under ideal conditions. You can read the (paid for) reviews over at PCMag. You can read the factually incorrect "reviews" that get posted here every so often. You can read user reviews..... BUT, at the end of the day, the software will all still fail miserably in real-world usage.

Recently (Dec 2013) I used Kaspersky to scan a harddrive. After nearly 3 hours of scanning, Kaspersky reported the harddrive as being clean. Approximately 30minutes later, my desktop was trashed by viruses that Kaspersky missed. I plugged that same harddrive into a laptop running Avast Internet Security 2014, which immediately started popping up warnings about infections. In total, that harddrive contained over 1000 different viruses that Kaspersky (one of the top rated Antivirus solutions on the market) completely missed. I should also pointed out that BitDefender missed all of these viruses as well. In the case of all 3 antivirus solutions, they were intentionally set to be as aggressive as possible and the 2 top rated, paid solutions completely failed in every sense of the word. Based on my own experience, and my research over the last week, I'm fairly confident that most (if not all) "professional" reviews/certifications are bought and paid for.

 

[firefoxx04]

Its called Malwarebytes. Its paid version is a one time $25 cost. I had lots of trouble with norton in the past (and recently) but malwarebytes never failed me. They dont advertise it as an anti virus but hell, its lighter than pretty much anything on the market and removes pretty much any threat. I hate macafee because it finds a way to get on your computer through other programs. Programs that slither their way into my computer have no place on my computer. Not to mention it pops up everywhere. Very loud and its threat detection is subpar.

 

[sykozis]

Malwarebyte's doesn't catch everything. In fact, it's real-time scanner seems to catch very little compared to it's own on-demand scanner.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

I don't care what they call it, I demand they STOP preinstalling that garbage on every single laptop sold!

 

[Grandmastersexsay]

Malwarebytes + Microsoft Security Essentials FTW. Free and I haven't had a virus since XP.

Still, people make too big of a deal about viruses. You'll catch one eventually. Its not the end of the world. Just back up important files and don't do stupid stuff like downloading pornographic RPGs on the same computer you do your online banking.

 

[mynith]

Funny how he said "Drop the brand OR fix the product". Gentlemen, we know what Intel has chosen not to do.

 

[sykozis]

The product, in all reality, is no worse than any other. Sure, in lab tests (which are the ideal environment, btw), some products fair better. In real-world use (the least ideal conditions possible), most of these products fail miserably. Just read user reviews. People aren't happy with any antivirus because they all fail to do their job properly or have unwanted effects such as instability or system lag.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I remember when McAfee anti-virus first came out. It was for MS-DOS and the first real alternative to Norton after Flu-Shot gave up the ghost. Intel gets its hands on it a screws it royally. Big surprise.

 

[sykozis]

McAfee was screwed long before Intel bought the company.... They've actually improved greatly since Intel bought McAfee. The false positive rate is down, the detection rate is up and system impact is down. Of course, that's all based on "lab tests"....

 

[belardo]

Sounds like you get all of your information from PCMag....who appears to get paid for their antivirus reviews. Recently (Dec 2013) I used Kaspersky to scan a harddrive. After nearly 3 hours of scanning, Kaspersky reported the harddrive as being clean. Approximately 30minutes later, my desktop was trashed by viruses that Kaspersky missed. I plugged that same harddrive into a laptop running Avast Internet Security 2014, which immediately started popping up warnings about infections. In total, that harddrive contained over 1000 different viruses that Kaspersky (one of the top rated Antivirus solutions on the market) completely missed.

I've not looked in PCMag or their site in years...
I'm also referring to what I've seen by the companies actions and how their product works. Mcafee spams, it seems to be "accidentally" installed on my of my clients computers when they upgrade something else... etc. I wasn't giving any credit to Norton, which I have not used in almost 10 years.

Not all AV programs will catch everything. If there is a time between an upgrade patch and the virus comes into your computer - then anything can happen. You got 1000 viruses? I doubt that... you may have had lots of infected files, but doesn't mean they are actually running. If 1000 were in operation, your system would be non-functional. Anyway here is what happened and what you should have tried out.

Once you got infected by a particular virus, it compromised your AV software.. making it ineffective. Then other viruses got installed on your system. Since your AV software is a walking dead program - you didn't notice. But as you said, you plugged the HD into another computer to run a different AV program. I bet if you ran Kaspersky from the other computer, it would have found the viruses.

When I tests other people's drives for virus, I pull the drive and use another CLEAN computer to do the scanning.

Personally, I use AVAST too. I'm fine with AVG.

 

[sykozis]

Sounds like you get all of your information from PCMag....who appears to get paid for their antivirus reviews. Recently (Dec 2013) I used Kaspersky to scan a harddrive. After nearly 3 hours of scanning, Kaspersky reported the harddrive as being clean. Approximately 30minutes later, my desktop was trashed by viruses that Kaspersky missed. I plugged that same harddrive into a laptop running Avast Internet Security 2014, which immediately started popping up warnings about infections. In total, that harddrive contained over 1000 different viruses that Kaspersky (one of the top rated Antivirus solutions on the market) completely missed.

I've not looked in PCMag or their site in years...
I'm also referring to what I've seen by the companies actions and how their product works. Mcafee spams, it seems to be "accidentally" installed on my of my clients computers when they upgrade something else... etc. I wasn't giving any credit to Norton, which I have not used in almost 10 years.

Not all AV programs will catch everything. If there is a time between an upgrade patch and the virus comes into your computer - then anything can happen. You got 1000 viruses? I doubt that... you may have had lots of infected files, but doesn't mean they are actually running. If 1000 were in operation, your system would be non-functional. Anyway here is what happened and what you should have tried out.

Once you got infected by a particular virus, it compromised your AV software.. making it ineffective. Then other viruses got installed on your system. Since your AV software is a walking dead program - you didn't notice. But as you said, you plugged the HD into another computer to run a different AV program. I bet if you ran Kaspersky from the other computer, it would have found the viruses.

When I tests other people's drives for virus, I pull the drive and use another CLEAN computer to do the scanning.

Personally, I use AVAST too. I'm fine with AVG.

My desktop was clean at the time the other harddrive was plugged in. My desktop is scanned on a regular basis using rescue discs from different vendors. Generally it's subjected to rescue discs from Avast, Kaspersky and Norton, as well as web-based scans from Trend Micro's Housecall and BitDefender's QuickScan as well as Malwarebyte's AntiMalware and Anti-RootKit. Since my desktop is used for online banking and bill pay, it has to be clean at all times.

Btw, trying to imply that you know more than someone else only works if you actually do. I never stated how many viruses actually managed to infect MY computer. It's much faster to simply wipe the harddrive and re-image than to scan for and remove viruses. All my important files are backed up to multiple locations to allow me to re-image the drive at any time. The other harddrive came from a laptop that was used for several years with no antivirus software installed. The system was unbootable.