Cheap VirusScan Home 8.0 (Software) (Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of VirusScan Home 8.0

McAfee should be ashamed of themselves for the blatant advertising of their other products embedded into the application. The tray icon with quick access to the McAfee Store is particularly offensive.

In terms of feature set, this version adds no apparent value over the previous version. In fact, some features seem to be missing (cannot seem to fine-tune the scan settings), or maybe are just so well-hidden as to appear missing.

The Updater application no longer runs in the background, requiring manual checks for updates (note that McAfee claims it runs in the background, but it does not actually do so--the "Install Automatically" option has yet to download a DAT file). Strangely, the Updater runs in a browser popup requiring one to remember to turn off popup blockers in order to make it work.

The "improved" scanning engine now detects "potentially unwanted" applications. If you happen to have something that makes the cut, you will be reminded on every scan--if there is a way to exclude a file, it is exceptionally well hidden.

In short, if you do not currently own a virus scanner, then this one will do the job. If you already have one, do not bother "upgrading" to this one.

McAfee -- "Security Software" from Hell
McAfee reminds me of the 18th-century thieves who, when pursued by the crowd, would join the pursuers shouting "Stop Thief." McAfee sells you "security software" to deal with everything from popups to spyware, and then the program you install annoys you constantly with popups and advertisements for all the McAfee products you haven't yet purchased. If you complain about this to their customer service department, you get a boilerplate response, directions to go to their useless and endless list of FAQ's, and -- get this -- an invitation to use their "priority" phone support system, which costs $2.95 a minute. They are simply the worst, the bottom, the pits. If their practices were done by a normal (non-web) business, their CEO and middle management would probably all be in the penitentiary for deceptive and unethical merchandizing practices. AVOID MCAFEE PRODUCTS AS YOU WOULD AVOID THE PLAGUE. IF YOU ALLOW THEM ONTO YOUR HARD DISK, YOU WILL BE SORRY FOREVER AFTER.

Renewal hell
Everything was Ok until I did my annual renewal. Or attempted to, anyway.

The offer was $49.99, with a $20 "mail-in" rebate. I thought that was about the stupidest thing I ever heard of in my life. I mean, I renew electronically, download electronically, pay electronically, and then supposedly get a rebate through snail mail. But, I needed the virus protection, held my nose, and paid the money.

I emailed McAfee customer support and told them my opinion. They responded to NOTHING that I said and merely noted that my email address was not registered with them as an account. This was strange, since I used that address to log in to their site.

Despite having renewed and downloaded the new version, the software didn't know that I had renewed. I was constantly interrupted to be informed that I needed to register. When I tried to register, the registration didn't work because -- miracle of miracles -- my email address was already registered -- the same email address that their customer support had no record of. (...)