Cheap VirusScan Home 8.0 and Personal Firewall Plus 5.0 Bundle (Software) (Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP) Price

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Customer Reviews of VirusScan Home 8.0 and Personal Firewall Plus 5.0 Bundle

Internet (IN)Security???
I have pretty much had it with McAfee. I was going to switch to Norton (which I have on my other computers) but I have had it with Norton, too. Finally, I decided to upgrade my previous McAfee versions to this current version of VirusScan and Personal Firewall as I was concerned about uninstalling McAfee and then installing Norton. I have probably $25,000 worth of software on this computer and I wasn't willing to risk losing the entire system if something went wrong during this process. There is something about "don't change horses in midstream". Therefore, against my better judgement, I decided to stick with McAfee on this computer.

Comments:
1) The McAfee upgrade was actually painless. (surprisingly after some of the horror stories reported in other reviews)
2)The virus scans are significantly slower using this newer version. It took about 2 hours for 25GBs of files. I see no impact on Internet browsing. (But I only have a 28.8K connection so problems may occur for highspeed connections?)
3)Automatic virusscans were not reliable. (Sometimes they ran, sometimes they didn't. Not good) This is more likely a problem with the Windows XP scheduler, however.
4) The firewall is a total security disaster (Hence (IN)Security). Why? I am extremely security conscious and I don't allow any programs to have unrestricted access to the Internet. I have to manually allow any and all program access. I can no longer do this with PF+5.0. Now, it is essentially, block all internet access for a specific program or allow it unrestricted access (forever, until you go in and manually delete the rule allowing unlimited access, which is a pain). Nothing in between. A good analogy: A stranger comes to your front door. You either decide to let him in or you don't. With PF+5.0, if you allow him in at all, you now also give him the keys and the alarm code and he has unlimited access to come and go into your house when and as often as he pleases. No onetime visits here.

5) The McAfee Security Center is the most egregious example of self-promotion I have ever seen. IF you don't have McAfee, you really just are not secure. BUY MORE MCAFEE PRODUCTS AND BE SAFE. Also, if you only have any other non virus/firewall McAfee products installed on your computer (Such as QuickClean, which don't require frequent updates) you are nevertheless continually getting popups asking you if you want to check for updates. I have done everything I can to disable these d*mn annoyances with no success. Maybe I can go to msconfig and prevent it from even loading?

Anyways, other than INsecurity and ANnoyances, upgrading hasn't been the disaster that others have experienced.

Additional (neutral) comments as of 2004-02-03
1) As far as I can tell, I have seen no anomalous Windows XP Pro crashes or system/program instabilities. (What a relief! (I'm not being sarcastic, just relief after other reviews!)) (For security, I use Windows fast user switching into an unprivileged account for normal use and I do see regular Windows crashes there but their frequency has not changed)
2) I have yet to get automatic virus scanning (ie scheduled scans) to work. Period. Every thing is set up properly (privileges/password/etc) but no luck. The only way I can get a full scan is to do it manually (as I am doing right now))
3) Update process is 28.8K modem unfriendly as McAfee no longer gives you update file size before updates. (Ie, you may be browsing and it is ok for a 100K update but not a 5M update?)

Ultimately, it appears this product either works (more or less) or it doesn't.

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Maybe a good security replacment for Norton 2004 products
I ran McAfee antivirus software for years going all the way back to DOS, Windows 3.0 & 3.1, Win 95, 98, and now XP. Back when McAfee was free it was an effective way to kept your computer secure. Nowdays with broadband "always on" connections to the internet a good antivirus and firewall program is a must to defend your computer against attacks. For the past several years I have used a combination of hardware cable/dsl router along with Norton SystemWorks Pro and Zone Alarm Pro. It has provided rock solid protection for all of my computers connected to the broadband network.

Recently I have read the horror stories regarding Norton's 2004 products requiring individual activation for each installation of the program. Since 2001 the Norton SystemWorks program along with its AntiVirus has become the sloth of the utilities and security programs as it seems to have become bigger, slower, and buggier. Here on my Pentium 3 1Ghz laptop I noticed my computer slowing down to a crawl more with each Norton update so that my once speedy portable computer has become less desirable to use. The Norton 2004 activation problem was the last straw for me. After reading up on alternative solutions I decided to buy the McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 which requires a simple registration online instead of the Microsoft type of product activation that the new Norton 2004 Antivirus requires. Unfortunately I did have one bad experience installing the entire complete McAfee security suite 2004 on a Windows 98SE system and it seemed to cause IE 6 and operating system lockups in Windows. I simply uninstalled the entire suite, was able to reinstall Norton 2002 that was on the system previously and I put the new McAfee suite aside for a few months. I later read how other people had problems specifically with the Privacy Service program in the McAfee suite.

Several months later my portable Pentium running Windows XP Home needed new antivirus since Norton 2003 AV updates were expired so I un-installed the ever slowing Norton System Works 2003 that had expired updates and then installed McAfee Security Suite 2004 ONLY with the McAfee Antivirus and the McAfee SpamKiller programs. I only installed those two McAfee programs in the security suite. I did not install the Personal Firewall or the Privacy service ( I have heard nightmare stories including my first McAfee installation nightmare when installing the Privacy service software). ZoneAlarm Pro 4 is already an excellent software firewall and privacy solution.

The results were that my system speed more than doubled after uninstalling the Norton System Works 2003 with AntiVirus. The McAfee Antivirus 2004 seems to be much more efficient and faster than the Norton AV solution. Windows IE 6 opens and browses much faster too. I highly recommend using ZoneAlarm Pro 4 or the newer 4.5 as the firewall instead since it also is a small program and is one of the best software firewalls you can use. However Zone Alarm is not as user friendly as McAfee firewall. It seems as if I doubled the speed of my laptop and I still have effective broadband security. Just to test it out I may also try out the McAfee firewall in the future. Many people have reported no problems with McAfee Firewall but the Zone Alarm Pro 4 works so good that I don't see the need to change my setup at this time. Just remember not to install the McAfee Privacy Service program that comes with the McAfee internet security suite abd opt out of the advertisements during the installation setup and you should be O.K.. I can't completely recommend the McAfee Firewall since I did not install it yet but I can recommend the McAfee and ZoneAlarm combined solution that I used on a my Windows XP laptop as a great alternative to any other combination that uses the Norton Antivirus for broadband antivirus security. One more note is that I do not recommend having Norton System Works and McAfee installed on the same computer. I tried it and it slowed my computer down so much that it was almost non-functional.

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Hmmm..McAfee
First off I was running a copy of McAfee VirusScan 6 w/Firewall 4 that came pre-installed on my new Dell. All was well for the first year until the 1yr DAT update subscription ran out. I found out that the VirusScan engine had now progressed to version 8. No big deal. I proceeded to download the updates (VScan/Firewall) online which was pretty painless. After upgrading I ran a virusscan and found lots of Adware! Not surprised! VirusScan gave me the option to delete/quarantine as it could not clean them. Word of advice. Don't delete,quarantine! Deleting hosed the LSP configuration on my system as removing adware apparently has a habit of doing! No LSP, no DHCP renewal (have broadband),hence no web access! Then you'll find out that McAfee offer free tech support via online chat room! No good for me as I lost web access! But the very polite customer service told me I can simply access their toll tech support for $2.95/min! Yeah right! McAfee's comment was 'All our competitors offer the same support' when I complained to customer service! I got the LSP layer fixed. Easy fix once you have access to the web (friends PC)! New software does run a lot slower. Older version I thought was more user friendly. And talk about McAfee trying to run the frighteners on you to buy the rest of their 'marketed' software! You don't need it! The McAfee is on a trial run! We'll see what happens!
For all you new buyers out there thinking about buying, look elsewhere!