McAfee Antivirus Survey

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OK, folks, I’ll take the first step and start the thread for us. This thread is to collect a list of SPECIFIC difficulties and/or problems about the McAfee ANTIVIRUS program that Lounge’ers can enumerate. One program, very specific problems! Remember, this is The Lounge! No bad-mouth, cursing or accusations. The Mods will be watching! In other words, I don’t want to hear: “it stinks.” Tell me something I can do some research on, please.

I’ll start it off with one comment I KNOW to be true. There seems to be an opinion that after a period of time, one has to PAY for “signature” file updates. Hoping that the wording was not intended to mean PROGRAM updates, I can tell you that the McAfee “DAT” files updates are always FREE and usually available weekly. I download one every Thursday or Friday and have for SEVERAL years.

Please join in, but remember our liabilities! It would help if you include the version number of which you speak…..

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I too have been using McAfee for several years with No Problems.
I was using Windows95 until a year and a half ago and have since been using WindowsMe (2 computer p2p lan).
I update my virus files at least once a week….Free.
McAfee has protected my system from infections on several occasions.
My opinion of Norton…..

In reply to MercC, post 162679, I posted some reservations re AVG a couple of weeks ago. Last week I decided to give AVG a try.
Over a 3 day trial, WindowsMe crashed repeatedly. As soon as I uninstalled AVG…..No Problems!!
From my experience, AVG is NOT compatible with WindowsMe.

Have a Great day!!
Ken

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Ken….Windows ME doesn’t get along with anything…. ….there are probably more people that hate ME than Norton and McAfee combined. We better not open that can of worms though, or Al will be after us!

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In my place of employment we were expected to use McAfee (always the latest version whenever it came out). I had reservations, having been a satisified Norton user for years. But . . . no choice. On my office computer (Win 98 SR 1), with the bare necessities running through Start-up, programs were exceedingly slow to open and run, available memory fell to 10-15%, lock-ups were frequent, even with only 1-2 programs open, usually IE and Word. Printing brought an even greater slowdown with the cursor jerking across the monitor. When I disabled McAfee, all the problems were eliminated. I was loath, however, to use the computer without an anti-virus program. Continuing frustration led me to uninstall McAfee, buy Norton at my expense, and install it. Since then, no comparable problems whatsoever. My take: regardless of its antivirus capabilities, McAfee wass a tremendous resource hog.

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Since yours is a post not-specific to a particular version, let me try to make a few observations. First though, everyone should know I’m NOT a programmer or even a systems analyst. What I AM is a 22 year “road warrior” in the PC arena. So, I may not always use all the right techie terms and definitions. McAfee Antivirus software, like the operating system and hardware on which it’s used, has evolved A LOT in the past few years. When they were back in the 4.x and 5.x versions, there were ALWAYS “dot releases” to fix problems or make small enhancements. Some of those earlier releases had trouble with WinME and Win2K, and the list goes on…..

However, to their credit, their technical support folks and their public forums were always very helpful to ME in working around a problem. Not everyone will feel that way, but isn’t that true of any software or hardware situation. Some people have good luck with Fords and stick with ’em, others go to Jaguars and so on. We should keep in mind that all (most) software and hardware “behaves” differently depending on all the other software and hardware you mingle it wirh.

There’s no need beating the dead-horse of all their prior versions, but one major problem with the antivirus program through many versions has been system slowdown and non-responsiveness. McAfee has done a number of things to solve that problem, but one they evidently have still not solved is a logging program of some type that I’ve mentiond before (and so have countless others). This program is called ALOGSERV.EXE. On the McAfee support forum and in direct email to me, their technical support said that this program can be “disabled” without disruption of the scanning and “catching” process, in other words it’s not critical to the operation of the program. I’ve done so ever since version 5.x and as I said, I don’t know why the problem hasn’t been officially fixed. On MY systems and on all those I used to be responsible for at my former employment shack, this workaround has solved the slowdown and sluggishness problem, or at least held it at arms-length!

And before someone has to ask me, I will say that in the “several” years I’ve used and administered McAfee’s antivirus software, I’ve never (fingers crossed) had a machine corrupted by a virus, worm or trojan. The only time I’ve ever seen someone get “stung” is when they don’t keep their data files as up to date as possible. Whew! I’m gonna stop now!

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Big Al,
FYI, the last version of McAfee I used was 6.0. I agree, it is an effective antivirus program, as I noted initially. But why should there have to be a work around after all these years of slowdown problems? As you said, “I don’t know why the problem hasn’t been officially fixed.” They may be responsive in most respects, but why not on this pervasive, ongoing problem?

Also, as you indicated, you’ve never had a “machine corrupted by a virus, worm or trojan” during the time you’ve used McAfee. Nor have I during the time I’ve used Norton.

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Also, as you indicated, you’ve never had a “machine corrupted by a virus, worm or trojan” during the time you’ve used McAfee. Nor have I during the time I’ve used Norton.

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I have. By both! I see AV programs as a necessary evil. I hate them all roughly equally. I use Norton AntiVirus because my employers pay for it.

StuartR

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I don’t know the answer to that, but I think, since we’ve been having all this duscussion, I’ll try my luck with McAfee support again and write to ’em to see what they say about that doggone ALOGSERV program. If I can learn anything, be assured I’ll post it here in The Lounge!

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Al, I must say that although I use Norton Systemworks, which includes virus protection, I honestly don’t care for either Norton or McAfee.

I have had numerous issues with McAfee that are different in nature than Norton AV. Notable, There was a period where I had exceptional difficulty getting McAfee to work on a new WIndows installation. The first thing I do after installing an operating system is to add AV software, and McAfee tanked several – by several, we’re talking in the teens, just from my own experience – Windows 98 PCs. I would encounter BSODs when booting. All of these machines were on different hardware, and over a period of about a year. It did not happen every time but the easiest solution was to avoid the problem altogether. At that time, AVG wasn’t even around, that I know of. It was at that time that I quit using McAfee and migrated personally and professionally to Norton. This I believe was around version 4 – which also had a complex user interface.

I can’t believe, however, that McAfee sucks that badly – after all, actions speak louder than words, and if their products were that viral, no one would be buying them, and they wouldn’t have a market.

I have had problems with the installation of Norton’s products too. More often than not, it’s not a show-stopper as the previous issue I noted. But it’s exceptionally irritating to have any notable number of problems at all – both of these companies have the resources to provide us with quality assurance, were they to care. Norton also has an annoying feature with its outgoing email scan in the most recent version. It’s intrusive, annoying, unnecessary – and it makes a big dent in performance when it runs. That is completely unacceptable from a company of that size.

For all interested, Norton AV updates are also available free. You must download the “Intelligent Updater” which is updated with the most recent build of definitions, no subscription necessary. In fact, I need to do that now, because I’ve removed and re-installed Norton AV twice on this very machine, and it still can’t auto-update itself. “Cannot read subscription data. Please reinstall Norton Antivirus.”

Funny, I didn’t hear anyone defending AOL or Compaq…

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Great writing, Mark. Oooh! I wouldn’t dare say anything about AOL or Compaq, but I would if asked!
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and McAfee tanked several … … Windows 98 PCs. I would encounter BSODs when booting.

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[/indent] Well, you can see how my Ford – Jaguar analogy relates. When I last worked, I was “responsible” for 30 to 40 desktop machines, all running Win95, then Win98 and I NEVER had a problem installing or running McAfee. Just goes to show…..

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Understood. As I stated I think that they’re both on the same level, except I took longer to do it in that post. I also failed to add that a client of ours had an NT workstation with McAfee, and I have no idea what version, and this PC would lock up, fail to log in, all very unpredictably – and removing McAfee fixed it. Our corporate standard is to include the latest version of Norton AV on all outgoing systems (they’re ghosted from a master image that is updated periodically after people like me complain about the install).

Also, a note about my stated Norton AV problems (LiveUpdate failing to update Norton Antivirus). I again removed and re-installed, to no avail. The upshot is that I did fix this – it involved a registry edit, so the faint of heart, beware and don’t try it if you’re the least bit unsure. Norton complained that it could not find “IraLrShl.exe” and provided a path. I checked in the registry and found an 8.3 named path:

C:PROGRA~1COMMON~1SYMANT~1LiveRegIraLrShl.exe

When this was replaced with the full Windows long filename path

C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedLiveRegIraLrShl.exe

everything worked. Now here’s the weird part: The registry has reverted to the 8.3 style path, and things continue to work. Now THAT, my friends, is ridiculous, and in my book, a bona-fide bug. Don’t bother reporting it to Symantec, though, my experience is that they will point you to a few knowledge base articles on their site, and if that doesn’t fix it, then it must be YOU, the user, in your stupidity. Twice I have queried about a reproduceable problem and twice my persistence was met with blank stares and a stone wall. I concluded that their support is in the if the online articles don’t help – and they don’t always.

More than from me, I put some serious down here!

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Used MacAfee Office 2000 updated from about 1998 Nuts & Bolts, on WIN 98SE standalone platform. Virus worked – as long as disabled the scan-all-opening-files (with that on, whole machine slowed to crawl, but admit MacAfee warns you of that). Wasn’t fully happy with utilities. Organization asked me to go to Norton, which I’d used at home. Maybe because it was latest version, was happier with Norton Utilities & anti-virus. But, discovered that even though had uninstalled MacAfee, Registry still had over 600 MacAfee entries, machine was running slow, crashing. Had to buy RegCleaner, everything back to normal. A program should uninstall correctly.
As far as anti-virus, frankly never seen difference. I do like the way Norton sets up separate address and filters incoming & out-going e-mail, am aware that feature has crashed some people, and aware the latest MacAfee does something similar, so it was just the older version of MacAfee that didn’t have the features I wanted.
MacAfee does has very confusing messages that do give impression you have to pay to update – how handy (financially) for them, no? Am fan of Bob Rosenberg’s V-Myths.com web site and philosopy, getting disgusted with sheer size of major anti-virus files and computing power needed. Swtiching to Opera for Browsing, but need HTML e-mail so can’t go to Opera e-mail totally, or even The Bat!
One final specific. MacAfee website is NOT totally w3-compliant, so had to fire up IE 5.5 to update anti-virus, search, etc. IE (and OE) are part of the virus problem and MacAfee forces you to use them?
Our organization has about 15 standalone computers and it really seems like MacAfee and Norton both are extremely sensitive to each individual computer enviroment, but MacAfee more so. So, is it MacAfee’s fault, hardware, other software, older gear, newest gear, or what? Darned if I can tell – and gurus either are totally opinionated or admit baffled too.
Tell me – if you just download the DAT files, aren’t you missing out on the new engines that detect better? MacAfee’s website sure gives you that impression.

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Tell me – if you just download the DAT files, aren’t you missing out on the new engines that detect better?

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[/indent] No, not if you download the correct stuff. Their “superdat” files contain not only the latest virus updates, but if there is an “engine” change, you get it too. Besides which, it’s an executable that is kinda automatic. I usually get mine from one of their MANY web pages, here.

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I don’t think you need any further contribution from me, Al. Jeff Scher makes one of my main points : the free upgrade period runs out, seemingly in the US as well as over here in the UK.
I could , but don’t intend to, send you a dossier of client’s problems caused, or contributed to, by McAfee VS. It is extensive (as is the one on WinME). I hold no such files on AVG.
An online search for the computer press reviews might yield some success. I got better things to do, since I already did this some time ago, and am trying with little apparent success to get some of the findings over to you.

I also teach young people some of the dangers involved in starting to smoke. There’ll always be, though, the 90-yr old who smugly states that he’s been on 20 a day since he was 14, and what harm has it done him? The people who die or are crippled by smoking-related diseases outnumber him by millions to one. I’m not saying that McAfee has harmed millions more people than it has helped : I have no statistics to support such a contention. I do see, however, that your avowed intention of restricting the discussion to ‘only the VS’ and ‘only the latest version’ takes no account of corporate ethics, platform stability or past performance. I read all of these as relevant.

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Jeff Scher makes one of my main points : the free upgrade period runs out

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[/indent] Yup, that’s a bummer alright!
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I could , but don’t intend to, send you a dossier of client’s problems

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[/indent] Didn’t expect a dossier, just an example (or two).
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your avowed intention of restricting the discussion to ‘only the VS’ and ‘only the latest version

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[/indent] I was attempting to focus a thread on ONE product, so it would have been fruitless to listen to “five years ago….” etc. Five years ago I tried (some other operating system) and I didn’t like it so I’ve been using Windows ever since! Doesn’t help. It also doesn’t help answer virus detection and removal questions if we focus on the other products that McAfee sells, regardless of their alleged lack of value.

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Ok Al, if it’ll make you happy, here’s a few taken at random and (considerably) edited for clarity. I have chosen these from 38. Some may refer to previous versions, some may be arguably not entirely McAfee’s fault.

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Q: I have used McAfee VirusScan for several years (it came as OEM with my Dell P11/350, regularly updating it from the McAfee website. I am tired of this process, and intend replacing it with Norton SystemWorks. Before installing this, I know I have to uninstall McAfee, but I am finding it impossible to uninstall it.

R: Go to its website and try to find a link where there is full instruction how to uninstall it. It’s a three pages long instruction, involving going into the registry.
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Q: The latest updates to Network Associates’ McAfee VirusScan/Netshield 4.0.2 apparently destroys the boot record of NT 4.0 machines, according to a story on The Register here.
R: Be careful out there.
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Q: I use W98 SE, Office 2000, Zone Alarm & McAfee VirusScan. When Windows starts up, just before the Office toolbar appears, I get a message “File ECOMWR.DLL not found”.
R: It’s part of McAfee’s ‘Safe and Sound’. Re-install
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Q: have McAffe VirusScan V4.0.3 which appears to do its job during the PC’s boot-up. However, just lately, when I ask it to do a scan separately of any of my discs, it refuses, giving me a message saying that ‘This program has performed an illegal operation’.
R: Have you tried re-installing McAfee?
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Boy, you really DO have an appropriate signature block! It’s not at all a matter of what will make ME happy. It’s an attempt on my part to “incite” fairness, not “indictment” into the process of commenting on software. Maybe I should just quit this foolishness, as it’s beginning to give me distress.

I have an important person calling for my help now, so I don’t have time to address the examples you DID give, but I’ll be back later when I finish taking care of other matters.

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I don’t know whether 38 examples is significant or not. I would imagine most of us have heard a lot MORE than 38 examples of why “Windows stinks,” or how come someone “wouldn’t touch Office with a ten foot pole,” and on and on it goes.

McAfee, like most other software, is uninstalled from the Add/Remove applet in Control Panel. It wouldn’t take too many fingers to count the number of software products that throughly and completely remove all folders from a hard drive, or all instances from the registry. I haven’t seen the web page you mentioned, but I do know that in the Local Machine and Current User keys of the registry, there are McAfee and/or Network Associates keys which, when deleted nicely clean up traces of the product. Doing the registry cleanup isn’t normally a requirement for getting the product to uninstall. It has been recommended to ME by their tech support in order to achieve a nice, clean re-install. Ideal – No! Can’t tell why your person had trouble with the uninstall.

I’ve NEVER used McAfee on an NT installation, so I can’t comment.

Taking your word for it that the DLL you mentioned is part of Safe and Sound. Was the DLL really there and the software corrupt? I wonder what could have happened? Ever seen something like that happen elsewhere? Safe and Sound, Shredder and so on, are part of the “fluff” that I readily admit I don’t use. Does that problem make the virus detection program unsound or unworthy? Your call – and it was, evidently.

I guess I take “called strike three” or in international terms, a “red card,” because who in the WORLD can tell why this user was getting such a rare message as “….illegal operation…” I probably would have tried a re-install as well.

You win, MerC, McAfee Antivirus software should be off your list of recommended products.

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do see, however, that your avowed intention of restricting the discussion to ‘only the VS’ and ‘only the latest version’ takes no account of corporate ethics, platform stability or past performance. I read all of these as relevant

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[/indent]Rule 3 is pretty plainly worded, unless I missed something. I can’t see any relevance in “corporate ethics” – I believe the main point that Al is concerned with is the merits of one product versus the other. Corporate ethics have little impact on us as end-users, unless slave labor is being used to create the product. Sticking to the latest version also makes sense; even the Lounge itself does not support older browsers – for the exceptionally small number of people who use the older platforms, the effort required is not a prudent investment.

Where did you collect these “dossiers”?

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“Corporate Ethics” can be relevant in a purchasing decision if you mean “How has this company treated people who purchased other products from them”.

If, for example, NAI had dropped all support for PGP, without releasing the fully working XP version of the product to customers who had purchased support contracts which included the right to product updates, then this might influence whether I was prepared to buy other products from them.

StuartR

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OK Let me see if I can summarize what’s been said so far. We’ve had:

System degradation/slowdown
Installation problems
Difficulty in un-installing
Problem with a DLL
Infamous “Illegal Operation” message
Problem with Windows ME (…or NT)
McAfee peripheral software problems (like Safe & Sound)
Signature file updates not free after one year
Base price of the product
McAfee’s non-compliant web site
Something about corporate ethics

And just for the record, Mr. Merc: [indent]

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…I got better things to do, since I already did this some time ago…

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[/indent] The only thing you did “some time ago” was slam the product, NOT point out specific problems. And that’s exactly my point of starting this whole thread. ALL OF US, myself included, should be careful of how we globally slam a product of any kind without some qualifiers being added. If you look at the list above, only the first is product specific; all the rest could be said of thousands of software and hardware products that we all use TODAY. I have NOT yet seen anyone say, here or elsewhere, that McAfee Antivirus program failed to prevent a machine infection if the data files have been kept up to date.

We’ll wait. The thread is still open unless Mr. / Ms. Moderator is getting sick of me…..

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Don’t worry, I am a mod of this board and things are going just fine. We are ALL here to learn and give our worth. I see nothing wrong with this thread as of yet. For a subject of this nature we have NOT gotten to the throwing mood as of yet.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Hi Al,
What I did some time ago was not in or for this Forum. It was a search for on-line reviews of the computer press for mention of McAfee. 38 is only the number of McAfee-related pleas I’ve been approached about personally. If I quoted other sources – including the computer press – I’d be here all week. I did also clearly say that the examples I posted were heavily edited : most of them had a deal of asking and replying. I tried only to give you the gist. The only other single pieces of software that come anywhere near causing such panic are Windows ME and IE in its various manifestations. I don’t do much slamming, but I can see what this program has done and caused and contributed to over several years. Your list is a fair reflection of what seems to have been occurring, and as you say, other programs show some of the same faults. None, I venture to suggest, has the complete set McA VS has.
I should not worry about Moderators getting fed up if I were you. Debate, argument, discussion (even quarrelling) is part and parcel of the interaction amongst equals. As long as we can avoid flaming and such childish nonsense and we can remain civilized under provocation the thread continues until the topic is exhausted, and/or people become disaffected. It matters not to me if the tone gets brutal, (as long as it’s not me being the brute) but we have to be careful not to frighten the horses. I’m also sorry to see that you are being distressed, as you mention elsewhere. No one, I’m sure wants you to give in because of that : fight your corner until you have been (if at all) convinced otherwise. And if not, we shall have to agree to differ, and be all the better for it.

Finally I should just like to explain why I mentioned corporate ethics. It was the misleading claims I quoted earlier for quite a different McAf product. Companies that beguile gullible people into buying their prodcts this way are, in my book, guilty of unethical conduct. I don’t doubt for one moment that McAf VS properly maintained has never let any user become infected. But why, oh why, does it have to do its job in such an intrusive manner? That is the basis of my opprobrium – other, equally protective, programs leave no such mayhem in their wake.
Nice try, but this program has NEVER been on my recommended list.

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OK Mr. Merc. Dave’s right. It has been getting kind of “heated” to say the least, both here and in the ZA thread. Can you and I have an e-handshake and come out friends? I hope so, AND you have my apology for any too-heated comments I’ve already made! You certainly have a lot to offer and I’d like to continue to wrestle with you, so to speak.

Look, let me just try to say what’s been bothering me and it just so happens that McAfee virus protection became my vehicle. I really HATE to hear people (not you, but everywhere) say: “I hate (insert name of product). It stinks and I wouldn’t use it if you paid me.” Or words to that effect. If someone doesn’t like a product, they ought to say why and what, if anything, they’ve tried to do to get the author to respond. This all started, I guess, back in the discussion about AVG. I’ve been helping or supporting folks with their personal computers for a long, long time and I loathe to hear a user say there’s a problem without telling what the “error message” actually was.

Alright, let’s finish a lovely weekend on a happy note and if Dave, Mark or whoever will leave the thread open, we can see what else transpires. Have a happy…!

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Oke,Al here`s another one to summarize.
MacAfee came with my pc when I,first bought it.
And from day one I,have had shutdown problems(Yes I`m running WinMe).
But ever since I,removed MacAfee(Wich,in my opinion went very easy).
And Installed Norton AV the shutdown problem has dissapeared.
Also,you know when you run Ad-Aware it gives you the number of running processes.
With MacAfee on I,had 24/26 running processes,but now with Norton,I have between 18/20.
But fair is fair I,never have had a virus with MacAfee and it always detected virusses.
I,did have dat-update problems with MacAfee(Sometimes for weeks).
And now Norton works perfectly,it auto-updates 2/3 times a week.

Greetz.

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I,m just surprised no one has mentioned,the prices they dare ask for their little piece of software.
And I`m talking about both MacAfee and Norton here.

Greetz.

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I think perhaps a more relevant question is why such basic security as this has not been bundled with, or made part of, the installation of the operating system. It’s not as though Microsoft has never tried to include popular or necessary software as part of Windows before, they’re in the US Judicial system right now, for that very thing. They included a firewall in XP….where’s the other part of safe online experiences?

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I paid $19.95 (USD) for McAfee Antivirus Version 6.0 and that didn’t seem terrible, but no, it’s not free.

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A program should uninstall correctly.

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[/indent]Don’t lay all of the blame at the feet of the software vendor. The installation and removal routines of software depend somewhat on the facilities the OS (Windows) provides them. Microsoft’s Installer is a step towards correcting that, but it too isn’t bug free. 600 entries is a lot, sure – how did you determine that figure?[indent]

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MacAfee website is NOT totally w3-compliant

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[/indent]You’d be hard pressed to find many sites that truly are. Remember that the vast majority of users are visitng with some form of Internet Explorer. Rather than spend the capital to maintain 100% standards based web pages, I’d prefer to see them sinking that into research and development. And if you think Microsoft’s pages, or Symantec’s for that matter are standards compliant, I would bet that they are not.[indent]

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is it MacAfee’s fault, hardware, other software, older gear, newest gear, or what? Darned if I can tell – and gurus either are totally opinionated or admit baffled too.

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[/indent]Frankly, I am amazed at how many different hardware configurations Windows itself works on, let alone the applications that depend on it. Both of these products hook into the system at a very low level, so it doesn’t surprise me that they are sensitive. You simply can’t test for every hardware configuration. PCs can be frankenstein monsters or pre-assembled. Where Apple excels is by control of the hardware in their lineup, which leads to very predictable behavior from the OS and applications.

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I have been using Nortons since the early DOS days. I have had some problems, but they were related to ‘Clean Sweep’ and the “System Checker” (I can remember the real name) program to keep your machine in shape. I have NOT installed “Clean Sweep” for several revisions, since it needs to be installed before you install any program so it can know how to uninstall the added program. Nortons dropped the system checker program several years ago so it is not longer a problem. I also do may own “Live Update”, as I do NOT trust any Auto type system including Windows Update.
Since these two programs are not on my machines Nortons AV and Utils work just great. The Speed disk with the 2002 could be a lot faster.

As for McAfee, with it installed I have serviced to many machines that were slower than and just by uninstalling McAfee the machine speeded up to a usable speed.

I also know that the AV world is just like the Mac and PC bit, which is the best, which ever one you use first is the one you will like and use the most

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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As for McAfee, with it installed I have serviced to many machines that were slower than and just by uninstalling McAfee the machine speeded up to a usable speed.

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[/indent] My Post

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Y’all may well be gittin’, but y’ain’t suppose’ta:
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Are DAT Files Free?
McAfee offers free online virus signature file updates (.DAT files) for one year. VirusScan owners can also subscribe to a maintenance and upgrade plan, ensuring complete virus protection beyond the first year, for a minimal fee.

http://download.mcafee.com/updates/whaTDat.asp%5B/url%5D

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Automatic LiveUpdate checks for and installs new virus definitions when you’re connected to the Internet to keep your system updated against the latest viruses*.
…
* One year of free virus definition service updates included with purchase of Norton AntiVirus 2002; annual subscription service available online for subsequent updates.

http://www.symantec.com/nav/nav_9xnt/features.html%5B/url%5D

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Simplified updates and support
Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 offers a new way to register your software online, making it easier for you to maintain your registration as well as recover from lost CDs, lost serial numbers, and other common problems. Simply fill out a few details on our online Registration page, receive your License Key, and insert it into a field on the “Register Now” screen of the PC-cillin 2002 main window. You may easily return to this Web page to update your contact information, which will be used to verify your license if you lose your License Key, CD, etc. Once you have registered, you receive a year of virus pattern file and scan engine updates, technical support, information about future updates and early warnings about the latest virus threats.

http://www.trendmicro.com/pc-cillin/products/features.htm%5B/url%5D

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[/indent]Frankly, developing signature/pattern files and updated engines costs money. Software engineers want to get paid; those writing open source products apparently are getting paid by someone else and have time on their hands. As long as the antivirus business is a kind of arms race, rather than a cooperative venture with a single file format, these costs are not going to go away. So moves toward “enforcing” the one year rule were inevitable, if not in the current version, then in the next.

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Being that Nortons comes out with a new version almost every year and I update to the new version I am a paid in full supporter.

I agree with you, one NEEDS to pay their share if one wants to continue to have some kind updates, nothin is . not even email and ISP’s remember them?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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This is ofcourse kicking in an open door.
But as you well know,everything on the internet is free or can be obtained without paying for it.
And,I`m not just talking about V-Scanners but all software that is available.
It`s all up for grabs.

Note to Moderators:I,know that Warez just is not done on this board.
That`s the reason I`m not talking about any particulair kind of software,just in general.
Nore,am I giving explanations on how to obtain it.
But we don`t have to be hypochrits either and deny the simple fact that this is a possibility.
Because the simple fact is that 99% of the visitors that lounge here,have got some sort of pirated software on their machine.
I,don`t want to make any problems for this board,so if you think this post will be compromising,just delete it.

Greetz.

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Well ah’ll be dadgummed! Learn somethin’ new ever day! I didn’t know dat DAT files weren’t free. Well, like Dave, I guess I’m still OK since I just bought Version 6 in 4Q 2001. I thought mebbe since the page you referenced for McAfee was lookin’ like the Virusscan ONLINE product….. So I checked my help file and sure ’nuff, it says (bad grammar again!) “….for one year as long as you use this product…”

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9 months ago I upgraded my compaq sp700 wkstn to NT4 server, and quickly discovered i would need ‘server’ anti-virus. My first instinct was to turn to McAfee, and bought their on-line a-v, at some expense.

Had constant problems getting it to work, and found the website support facilities pitiful. The root of the problem (as I recall) was that I needed an activiation code which finally arrived by snailmail 6 weeks later. Various emails to NAI in the meantime had had no effect at all.

By this time I had given up, conducted some proper research, and in the end chose ESET’s NOD32 over AVG on the basis of Virusbulletin test results.

The first time I ran NOD32 it found a couple of virii in my pst file, which had been lurking there since when I had McAfee wkstn version.

Conclusion:
Pitiful customer care (server a-v is not cheap!!), and suspect detection – I now realise that the infected files may have been cleaned / neutralised in a way that protected me, but which NOD32 still recognised as being a virus, but McAfee had told me nothing at the time, and given me no choice to delete the offending files.

BTW I’m delighted with NOD32 – lightning fast, automatic updating, and transparent pricing.

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Alrighty! I think this topic has been exhausted. I’m locking it now. No more please

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