Hell, didn’t it all go pear-shaped! From then on it got worse and worse. Difficult to use interfaces, supposedly designed for beginners; the inability to disable anything or change any settings; automatic disinfection instead of “ask me what to do” dialogues… and now the installer alone for McAfee AV is bigger than the hard disk on my old laptop! And when I tried a trial, it dragged my Core 2 duo to a halt.

Do yourself a favour, and buy elegant, small and separate AV, firewall and anti-adware solutions. Some companies still make ones that don’t bring your computer to its knees, or treat you like you’re an idiot. So many “security” solutions slow your system to a crawl, and automatically remove “threats” without you asking - which in my experience has been as unpleasant as having a virus, and as dangerous than not having an AV at all.

The computer started acting strangely, so I decided to restart it, and see if that would solve the problem. My computer is two months old. I have an XP with Service Pack 2, etc. Top of the line computer. Everything worked fine. My computer came with a trial version of McAfee’s SecurityCenter. When the trial was coming to an end, I decided to accept McAfee’s SecurityCenter one year service contract, which includes: Viruscan, Personal Firewall Plus, Privacy Service, and Spamkiller. On the 29th of April 2006, all hell broke lose, when during an update installation for Viruscan I was being prevented from shutting down the computer. A message informaed me that McAfee was running an update installation in the background, and that they would let me know when I could shut down.

I began wondering about the whole thing. I mean, anyone who’s programmed knows how easy it is to make a dialog box, slap in an icon, and write a message aimed at a user. What tells me this is McAfee. I found it harder and harder to believe two hours later that this message was authentic.

After I unplugged the machine twice (the power button was deactivated) I gave up trying, and fell at the mercy of whoever was doing whatever to my new computer. Some eight hours later, the machine closed down by itself. It was two in the morning. I decided to wait until the next day to turn it on again.

At around supper time the next day, I turned on the computer not knowing what to expect. The machine behaved the way it had the day before, and again I decided to shut it down, and restart it. The same message came back on screen. Approximately nine hours later, the computer restarted, and a message appeared telling me there had been an error during the installation of an update for Viruscan. I had to wait that long before finding out what had gone on! I’m not impressed, and as soon as I can, McAfee’s not just losing my business, but I’m making it my business to let everyone I know know about what I think about McAfee’s service.

We vehemently disagree on the idea of using a monolithic solution. You’ll have a tough time finding any sizeable contingent of security professionals (who are not aligned in some way with monolithic vendors) who think that strategy belongs in the Best Practices category.

As for what’s good about McAfee… Surely their advertising budget is large enough to buy the spirited promotion of their philosophy, both above board and below.

It’s too bad they don’t move a bit of that treasure chest over to the QoS side of the house.

And about that “far-left” zinger… We have to ask, Ensley: What the hell are you smoking? Your last conclusion brings light to the reasoning behind your earlier comments.