Mcaffee SecurityCenter... worth keeping?

kj01

I recently got a new Dell computer, and already pre-installed on it was the McAfee SecurityCenter. I've heard that anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are sometimes more trouble than they're worth (due to firewalls and such limiting internet access). Also, it asks me to register it to receive necessary upgrades... but when I say "register now", it does not do anything. So I was just curious if it was worth keeping, or whether it would be alright to simply uninstall it. Any input is great.

kevbot

My advice would be to get rid of it. I'd also wipe the hard drive and re-install from scratch just to get all of the dell pre-installed junk off of it.

I'm partial to NOD32 as far as antivirus software goes. It doesn't cost too much, is blindingly fast and if you don't like how a component is working, you can turn it off (ie I don't need Internet content filtering or Outlook/Office integration, so I can disable it in the control panel and actually have it turn off). I've used pretty much every maintream AV (norton, mcaffee, bitdefender, avg, antivir, kaspersky) and I recommend NOD32 above all of them.

Triko

Get rid of it FAST!

I wasted $70 on Mcaffee Security Center, which slowed my computer to a crawl for two weeks (I tried everything to see what was wrong), before I sucked it up and uninstalled the damn thing. Do a little research online (like forums discussing Mcaffee), and you'll get a lot of the same complaints.

I use AntiVir Guard antivirus after it got mentioned on this forums, it's free and works good enough for me.

ElectricTurtle

Personally I think all anti-virus programs are a waste of CPU cycles and memory. I don't bother with any on my systems and on the rare occasion I do get viruses (usually from some dumbass's shares at a LAN party), I haven't met one I couldn't beat down in five minutes with safe mode, the CLE and sysinternals (albeit in reverse order). Then again, I've worked desktop support for the last decade, so maybe it's worth it to you to have software figure it out for you... just stay the hell away from Norton.

Thanatos

ElectricTurtle wrote: »

Personally I think all anti-virus programs are a waste of CPU cycles and memory. I don't bother with any on my systems and on the rare occasion I do get viruses (usually from some dumbass's shares at a LAN party), I haven't met one I couldn't beat down in five minutes with safe mode, the CLE and sysinternals (albeit in reverse order). Then again, I've worked desktop support for the last decade, so maybe it's worth it to you to have software figure it out for you... just stay the hell away from Norton.

Yeah, this is my experience, too, though a lot of people on these boards will disagree with me.

ege02

Thanatos wrote: »

ElectricTurtle wrote: »

Personally I think all anti-virus programs are a waste of CPU cycles and memory. I don't bother with any on my systems and on the rare occasion I do get viruses (usually from some dumbass's shares at a LAN party), I haven't met one I couldn't beat down in five minutes with safe mode, the CLE and sysinternals (albeit in reverse order). Then again, I've worked desktop support for the last decade, so maybe it's worth it to you to have software figure it out for you... just stay the hell away from Norton.

Yeah, this is my experience, too, though a lot of people on these boards will disagree with me.

Well, yes, common sense dictates leaving your computer vulnerable in order to save up a little bit of memory is a dumb thing to do.

OP: I use AVG. It's pretty effective, and I don't notice it running at all (except maybe if it's doing its daily active scan).

Iruka

I've always used avast ( http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html )

Its free for personal use and its kept my compy nice and healthy, its never slowed me down, to my knowledge. I too have a dell, and got rid of pretty much all the crap that came with it. I've never tried AVG

BoomShake

ege02 wrote: »

OP: I use AVG. It's pretty effective, and I don't notice it running at all (except maybe if it's doing its daily active scan).

I use the same thing. For a free AV software, it's got a fairly low resourece footprint, decent scanning, etc. I've also got a buddy running NOD32, so I'll second that one as well. But for the love of god, get mcaffee off there.

KMFurDM

Thanatos wrote: »

ElectricTurtle wrote: »

Personally I think all anti-virus programs are a waste of CPU cycles and memory. I don't bother with any on my systems and on the rare occasion I do get viruses (usually from some dumbass's shares at a LAN party), I haven't met one I couldn't beat down in five minutes with safe mode, the CLE and sysinternals (albeit in reverse order). Then again, I've worked desktop support for the last decade, so maybe it's worth it to you to have software figure it out for you... just stay the hell away from Norton.

Yeah, this is my experience, too, though a lot of people on these boards will disagree with me.

You won't see me disagree. I haven't had a virus since the mid 90's. I learned my lesson the hard way in the days when AOL (2.0) was king.

It's about smart computing at the end of the day but if you must use antivirus for peace of mind go with AVG.

Reiten

I've always found Mcaffee to be a horrible drain on my system. I've used both AVG and Antivir with good results. The AOL free one is also good (it's based on Kaspersky), although I had some problems with it and peer-to-peer programs (IIRC, the problem was fixed in the paid Kaspersky, but the free base provided to AOL was pre-fix).

Xaquin

I've used Avast for years and have never had a virus

maybe I'm lucky, but all the same, I'm not about to stop using it