McAfee Internet Security  2010 - 3 User

I would tend to agree with most comments I have seen.
It does its job, it protects well (when its working), it provides comprehensive protection (but it eats the memory), it stops most spam, viruses, malware downloads, and I like the warnings it gives about known threat websites (do a google search and McAfee adds a little icon traffic light to each result.
When doesn't it work... well it came with my laptop so I have been using it for 3 years. For a long time I had problems with various elements (email protection, files, firewalls) not starting up or failing for no apparent reason. the unhelpful pop up box tells you what has stopped / is not working and offers the "Fix This" button, trouble was the fault was in a file and the fix this just restarted the element so it never got fixed properly. there was a lot of discussion on this problem for over 2 years on the McAfee forums, eventually McAfee fixed it but it seemed to take them forever and the only way you knew there was a solution was to keep checking the forums - the company didn't email its customers or even the people who had added to the threads on the forum. The uninstallation and reinstallation is not a trivial task if you are not on the ball with IT. Anyway McAfee has worked Its been Ok since the fix but the company let the software down.
McAfee makes security easy, updates come in automated downloads, you need do nothing unless it needs a restart. For the majority of the time it behaves well, but when its scanning or updating my machine slows to a crawl or seems to stop for a few seconds sometimes. I have 2Gb of RAM so its a bit annoying that McAfee feels free to gobble up inordinate amounts of it.
What has really annoyed me is the "automated renewal" feature. I took out a 2 year renewal and the autorenewal feature was installed on my account without any notice and without my authority - it was only when I got the "Thanks you've renewed" email (yes very bland and uninformative) that I decided to start looking at other products... Nortons, Trend Micro, AVG are all in the running, and found useful info on how to cancel the McAfee renewal. The renewal was more expensive than buying a new package from Amazon... so the company has behaved badly again treating its customers like cash cows. The H-online website reports this - and if you ring McAfee you will get fed the same lines verbatim:
"The New York State Attorney General has ordered anti-virus vendors McAfee and Symantec to pay a total of $750,000 in penalties and to reform their business practices. The companies have been penalised because of their policy of automatically renewing anti-virus subscriptions. Updates, particularly of the virus malware signature files, are sold on a yearly subscriptions basis. McAfee and Symantec's policy has been to automatically renew subscriptions for customers that purchased their products online using a credit card. The companies justification for their renewal policy is that it ensures customers aren't left unprotected from the latest threats if they don't manage to renew their subscriptions on time. According to the Attorney General, the vendors simply debited the fee to credit cards without notifying customers or obtaining their permission". 11 June 2009
For UK customers you can cancel the auto-renewal PROVIDING YOU KNOW ITS THERE!!!
So its a question of some reasonable protection but do I trust the company... NO - buying a new copy of the product from Amazon will save me £25.00 on that charged by mcAfee!! they will rip me off if they can and thats not a good way to treat your customers. i am still pondering this question before buying a new McAfee / Symantec nortons or something else from Amazon.
So finally, if you buy this turn off auto-renewal on your account, the software will tell you your subscription is expiring 28 days before it ends anyway. If you are replacing a current McAfee installation you need to uninstall completely before reinstalling and you'll have to set up a new McAfee account you can't connect to your old one.
Hope thats all useful!!

Although McAfee has kept my various computers very safe over several years, I recently decided to ditch it.

One reviewer mentioned the auto-renewal which is assumed for ever after if you give them your credit card details on-line-it's a devil of a job to cancel this and there is no way of doing this directly via the website.

If you must use McAfee, buying a new version (from Amazon or wherever) each year is actually cheaper and less-trouble than buying a 'Virus Definitions' subscription renewal directly from McAfee.

If you ever had McAfee installed on your computer, expect pop-ups and email reminders for years afterwards, even if they don't relate to that particular computer.

This causes a lot of confusion and I know several people who have bought additional 'product' even when they didn't actually need it.

To be fair, I know people who have done the same with Norton.

I recently purchased a 3-licence version of the 2010 software and found that the 3 licences can only be used under the same McAfee username (a while back, you needed a different username for each installation of McAfee).

As I had installed one on a friend's computer, I effectively wrote-off the other two licences which were intended for my own use.

Also, the product has become extremely 'bloated' with stuff like 'Phishing Filters', 'Privacy', 'Anti-Spam' and 'Parental Control' which are already implemented by many Internet Service Providers or available in Web Browsers and email clients.

Using all of these just increases the number of alerts which are taken less-seriously as a result.

Also, McAfee is forever coming up with 'your computer is not protected' messages which are usually corrected by simply clicking a 'Fix' button--what is that all about?

These messages seem to arise if a full scan or virus definition update hasn't been done for a while, even if those operations are done automatically in any event.

As Windows Vista has a perfectly good (2-way) firewall, I have recently deleted McAfee from all of my computers and downloaded the free version of AVG which is very popular and provides perfectly good basic protection without a load of 'hassle'.

Be very careful not to get yourself signed up for their "Always On Protection".

I used my credit card to renew the McAfee that came with my Dell PC. I'm not sure if it was in the McAfee small print or not, but they then automatically re-renewed the software without warning taking an additional payment from my card! (Even though the PC was on it's last legs and due to be scrapped).

The automated e-mail which they sent out to 'thank me for my successful renewal' didn't even give clear contact details to cancel the renewal (e-mail replies were simply bounced). In desperation I logged onto their site and their server wouldn't even let me delete my credit card details, let alone cancel the "Always On Protection" or my entire account and personal details.

The only way I found to rectify it was to call their UK Home & Home Office sales line (0207 949 0107).

The way McAfee abuse their customers loyalty is enough to put me off buying their software ever again (even if it comes bundled with a Dell PC).

Dave Gee