Has anybody tried to work with McAfee virus protection & firewall? YUK!!!

In the past 2 weeks, I've been on line with technical support for McAfee for a total of about 23 hours....this is the WORST software in the world! I've had to install/uninstall seven times since last Sunday (1 week +).

What were these programmers thinking??? :argh:

It works (sorta), but damn if it's not almost as bad as manually cleaning your own hard drive, and opening and closing your own damn window everytime someone comes to "peep". Geeeez!!!

I finally had to ask one technical support guy if he was a "real person", or if it was a computer-generated response to questions. You tell them what they need to know, and in the very next post, they ask you what you just told them.

IT'S MAKING ME CRAZY!!! Is there a reasonable alternative? Norton used to lock up my computer, and was hard as hell to remove, also. Why can't someone make good anti-virus protection?? Is it THAT hard? It should be lucrative as hell, which is why I'm surprised they can't hire better programmers -- or at least turn their programmers loose to do what they can do: it could be a company politics thing for all I know.

:wtf:

Sue

get somone to disable the program from your opneing script, or you will go insane. Better yet, just try to dlete and uninstall.

It stops all incoming email etc. They are knuckle heads.
Take the pain of spending more money and get Norton. It works.
And plus--DU'ers on this site know of some free download sites.

Sure, it's impossible to remove, but I really have no reason to. I have NIS running on my XP system and a 5-year old unit with Win98. Works fine with both.

Stay away from ZoneAlarm. Royal pain in the ass to uninstall.

I've heard Panda is pretty good, and I think it's freeware (correct me if I'm wrong).

How old is your system?

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

I've never had any problems with it.I did have problems with McAfee. This edition of AVG is free. McAfee requires a purchase and subscription. Your mileage may vary, but I'm happy with the AVG.

Firewall? I use Sygate Personal Firewall.... again a freebee I have no probs with.

http://www.simtel.net/product.download.mirrors.php?id=53687

when I could not get it to update. Always recieved message that "files damaged". Now I use, and it too is free,Anti-Vir Guard for Windows 9x/ME Personal edition. It can be downloaded from http://www.free-av.com I like it better than AVG mainly because it is continually updating itself sometimes 2 or 3 times a day! Firewall...also free...is from Zone Labs! Seems to work excellent and occasionally they offer the pro version for free for 30 days! Find it at http://www.zonelabs.com

IT'S MAKING ME CRAZY!!! Is there a reasonable alternative?

Why yes there is!

SUSE Linux

You'll never worry about Norton, nagware, popups, etc again.

I've heard a lot of praise on DU for Linux, but it seems that it's an alternative to Windows (do I sound like a "dummy"?), and I don't know any programming, or DOS, or anything else besides Windows.

How hard is it to learn? Am I totally off base?

:kick:

I'm a programmer by trade, but I'll try to answer your question.

I guess the best answer is, it depends. If you primarily surf, chat, do email, etc, then Linux is probably better for you due to the lack of viruses.

If you play games, it's slightly iffier. I play UT2k4, Tribes2, and GTA3 on linux without problem. The first 2 games are native Linux versions, and GTA3 runs under emulation. I don't have any problems with either.

Installing linux is stupidly simple. Setting up Suse 9.0 is arguably easier than setting up *any* windows variant, but the catch is your hardware has to be supported. If you have a relatively vanilla PC, with relatively popular hardware, you shouldn't have a problem at all.

Using it... personally I like it better. It's more mac-like than windows, which is a good thing. For example, if I hook up a digital camera to my computer, it's just recognized and an icon is placed on my desktop. I open it, drag the pictures out to a folder, and then unplug it. Icon goes away. You'll note I didn't say "Install drivers" at any point in there, because SuSE will take care of that on the fly. Same thing applies for other USB devices, but some (Printers) you'll have to configure slightly (IE, print settings).

All in all, it's a viable alternative and a long way from where it used to be.

I don't use my computer to play video games....just for work and DU and e-mail.

My work involves a lot of picture downloads, and it's interesting you mentioned how simple it is w/ Linux.

What do you mean by a "vanilla" PC....I've got a HP notebook that I take on the road w/ me when I work (w/out a CD writer....Whaaa! Just a CD drive), and I got it in '01. Is it too "chocolate"... would the hardware be supported, ya think?

Do I need to buy a book about Linux?

:kick:

If you went with SUSE, it comes with a pretty comprehensive manual, so you'd probably be fine there. Go with another versions of Linux, however, and all bets are off.

Your laptop should probably be fine, the only iffy bit there would be the modem. It's *probably* a winmodem, and you'd have to look to see if it's a supported model. If you want to email me the type of WinModem in your system, or need help figuring it out, I'd be happy to help.

-jon

I'm glad to know everyone else has pretty much the same opinion of it, and that it's not just me. If you look at the web site, they have FAQ's that are as long as your arm, and portray countless other frustrated subscribers' experiences w/ it.

Can we file a "Lemon" lawsuit? This product is a MAJOR lemon, and it looks like we'd have some good company, from looking at the FAQ's. The countless hours I've spent online w/ tech support, and the countless hours in addition that I've spent installing/uninstalling, and trying to figure it all out, have cost me far more than just the price of the software.

I'll check out some of these alternatives, and I'm going to get my $$ back from McAfee this week. Of course, that will probably be just as difficult as the rest of the experience.

What a zoo...


:kick::kick:

and have not had any problems with them.
I found their customer support to be excellent.


:shrug:

When I installed XP I switched from Norton to McAfee on my brother-in laws advice. It is very obtrusive and the firewall for some reason constantly disables itself and I have enable it. this happens several times a day. I'm trying something else next year, Norton seemed to slow my computer and caused some lock-ups but overall I preferred it to McAfee.

And we like it...We use a firewall we found on the internet that has worked for us.
Duckie

I had a trial of McAfee one time, and the security center just would not remove. I think I had to re-format. And Norton might be ok the first or second time I install it, but on subsequent installations, the software breaks. Who ever heard of that? Beware of activation glitches with Norton, too. Also, last year, they had big time trouble with common client updates. I've decided on KAV for AV (it's expensive, but has updates multiple times daily, has a huge database of viruses AND trojans, moderately good heuristics, and has great support.) People say KAV 4.5 is a resource hog, but my computer is slower with Norton on. For firewall, I'm using Zone Alarm Pro 4.5. It has the capability of making rules, and default settings are pretty safe.

KAV stands for Kaspersky Anti-Virus.

slows PCs to a crawl every time it wants to update itself.

McAfee is shite... all Norton needs to do is let their LiveUpdate work for non-administrator accounts and McAfee's toast.