Hardware Geeks

As many of you know we tested out Norton Internet Security 2009 about 2 months ago, and we loved it, we loved it so much that we have bent over backwards recomending it to everyone. We showed you how it installed in under a minute and how with our test it caught every single thing we threw at it.

So we decided to test other security suites out, and we reviewed Panda Internet Security 2009, in a about a week or two we will bring you Microsofts One Care review but today we bring you McAfees Internet Security 2009 Review. 

Just like NIS 2009 I was immediately impressed with the McAfee software. I made a big deal about how fast Norton installed but it really didn’t take long for McAfee to install either. It took less than 3 minutes, which in my opinion is pretty fast for a security suite and for those of you wondering what System I installed it on. It was a HP HDX 18.

Once installed I wanted to see if it was a resource hog and if it would bog down my system it didn’t, nor did it tie up my system when it performed full system virus scans. One of the problems in the past for me with McAfee products and most every other security bundle available. was they slowed down my system and in some cases made my system unusable. But McAfee has worked hard to streamline the bundle and make it less of a burden on your system. At any given time the software suite used no more than 10 megs of memory and I don’t think I saw the CPU usage spike over 5%, except when starting a Virus Scan.

One of the first things I did with the McAfee bundle was test how well it would protect me. So I purposely visited websites that I know push malware and other naughty software and I am happy to report that the system did not get infected with anything. I then inserted a USB stick which contains some sample viruses and as soon as I plugged in the drive into the USB port and before the Autoplay even popped up McAfee alerted me of the potentially dangerous files on the USB stick. (They weren’t actual viruses just sample files that contain signatures of viruses that I have collected)

McAfee also has website ratings where you are alerted of a potentially dangerous website before you visit it. It’s called Siteadvisor and it works with their website Siteadvisor.com. Siteadvisor basically scans websites for problems and allows people to post about the problematic sites. Green = Good, Yellow = Beware. Red = avoid. We checked our site status and we are listed as Green however a user said we spam a lot. Which we don’t we do not even have a mailing list to spam too, so while the Green, Yellow and Red ratings McAfee gives to sites seem to be accurate some comments left by users may be inaccurate. Something to keep in mind. But it is a good tool to help protect yourself from visiting a dangerous website and getting infected with something you don’t want. I know I don’t want no CTDs (Computer Transmitted Disease) on my system.

But just in case Siteadvisor fails you and the definitions on your system are not up to date, don’t fear as McAfees active protection will still protect you. If you download a file with no identification signature, and if it has traits of a Virus, McAfee will alert you even if it doesn’t match any virus definitions loaded on your system. They do this because they know that viruses sometimes make it to the wild before they can detect them and release a virus definition update. A great feature in my opinion.

Another cool feature is the network protection feature. When anything connects to your local network it will alert you and you can easily deny it access to your computer. It doesn’t annoy you though because when you first install it, it is somewhat dormant scanning your network finding friendly PCs and other network enabled peripherals. But after a few days it will alert you when a new PC connects to your network. That in my opinion is great because I personally know what systems are on my network and if I am alerted that one has connected when one shouldn’t be connecting at all I can protect my systems and not allow that system to be in contact with them and login to my router and remove the system from my network.

The firewall also works great, you can customize it anyway you like. I like that I can easily customize it and I just said easily and it is very easy because of how the entire user interface is. It isn’t as confusing as the Panda UI was.

McAfee also has identity protection tools and parental control tools, which protect you when your banking online and helps you avoid phishing attempts and of course the parental controls help protect your kids when you aren’t home.

Overall McAfee Internet Security 2009 is great, but when I try to compare it to NIS 2009 I don’t see a clear winner. They are both great programs they both have their plus and minuses. I personally would recommend to those of you looking to buy a security suite to go with the brand you trust, and those of you who are hardcore PC users who think McAfee is overly bloated and not worth it’s weight in gold. I recommend you give it another shot you definitely will be surprised.

For more information visit: http://www.mcafee.com/us/

Post Tags: review  internet security  reviews  virus  mcafee  malware 

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