Entered CNET Catalog: 08/21/2003
SKU: VSL80E002RAA
Manufacturer: McAfee
Manufacturer description
PC protection is nothing to take lightly. Every day you get online, you are exposed to more viruses and smarter hackers. And with the advent of handheld devices such as PDAs, computer viruses are no longer limited to desktops and shared disks. These days, you need to take advantage of all the protection you can get. For reliable protection, choose McAfee VirusScan Professional 7.0, a superior anti-virus product with even more features for comprehensive PC protection. Now you have one solution to eliminate viruses, quickly clean up your PC, permanently erase private information, and more. McAfee VirusScan Professional technology enables your PC to detect and remove all types of known viruses from any source - including email attachments, Internet downloads, shared disks, CD-ROMs, and even PDA synchronization. It also detects destructive ActiveX and Java applets, which are often downloaded without your knowledge while you browse. Each time you connect your PDA to your PC, it's as dangerous as having an unknown floppy disk inserted into your computer. That's why VirusScan Professional includes anti-virus support for more handheld devices than other anti-virus solutions. VirusScan Professional also adds essential technology for everyday PC computing, including automatic cleanup of unnecessary files, secure data shredding, and more.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 10/15/2003
McAfee recently merged its retail version of VirusScan Professional 8.0 with its online version. That's good news for users who want to download and install the program via the Internet. Installation, both online and via CD, was trouble-free and took only a few minutes. Upon start-up, VirusScan Professional downloaded updated virus definitions, as most antivirus programs do.
Last year, we praised VirusScan Professional's browserlike interface but found its multiple Web page-like screens tedious to navigate, particularly when we had to dig through several layers just to change a few basic settings. VirusScan Professional 8.0 replaces the previous version's ungainly, browserlike interface with the McAfee Security Center, an interface from which you can manage all security programs on your PC--including third-party firewall, privacy, and spam-blocking apps. The Center's Security Index uses graphical bars (with a 1 to 10 rating scale) to show how well your PC is protected against all kinds of digital intrusions--viruses, hackers, spam, and so on--and it provides quick access to VirusScan Professional's settings.
Despite Security Center's embrace of third-party security apps, it's still very McAfee-centric. On our test PC, for instance, we use the ZoneAlarm firewall. Security Center accurately detected the presence of ZoneAlarm, as indicated by the 10.0 rating on the AntiHacker index; but by default it stated that McAfee's Personal Firewall Plus was "not installed," a statement that might confuse some novices into thinking they weren't fully protected.
VirusScan Professional 8.0 may be leaner, but its virus-fighting tools retain their muscle. McAfee has improved its worm-detection skills with WormStopper (previously known as HAWK), a PC system behavior-analysis tool. WormStopper blocks malicious, wormlike behavior, often before a signature-file download is available. It's difficult to predict future worms; however, VirusScan Professional detected and deleted the MSBlast worm on our test PC, something our previous antivirus program missed. The ScriptStopper feature, which finds and blocks malicious scripts, is unchanged from version 7.0.
Better integration with Microsoft Outlook includes on-demand scanning of all e-mail folders and archives to find viruses and worms lying dormant there. Like Norton AntiVirus 2004, it scans inbound and outbound IM messages; its predecessor scanned inbound only.
Unfortunately, McAfee has removed its firewall from VirusScan Professional 8.0, something that previously gave the product a competitive edge over the always firewall-free Norton AntiVirus. VirusScan Professional 8.0 users can try a 30-day free trial of McAfee Personal Firewall Plus via the Security Center; however, users can also get the free, and much better, ZoneAlarm firewall from Download.com.
ViusScan Professional also includes McAfee Shredder, which overwrites deleted files with 1s and 0s for added security, and QuickClean lite, an app that deletes temporary Internet files and other garbage that can build up on your PC. Finally, like Norton AntiVirus 2004 Professional, two user licenses are included in the $59.99 retail price, with an annual renewal fee of $14.95.
In our CNET Labs' tests, VirusScan Professional 8.0 caused less of a drag on system performance than Norton AntiVirus 2004 did. But McAfee scanned our 1GB drive much more slowly than Norton. Here are our test results:
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In past VirusBulletin tests, McAfee's VirusScan has been tested and passed only once, back in June 2002. By comparison, Norton AntiVirus has been tested six times and earned the coveted VB 100 percent title each time. It's hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from such limited data. Previous versions of VirusScan have also been certified by the independent antivirus testing laboratories at West Coast Checkmark, ICSA Labs, and AV-test.org.
McAfee, like Symantec, charges for its telephone phone support: $3 per minute (with the first two minutes free) or a flat $39 per incident ($10 more than Symantec's flat fee). A more affordable option, obviously, is McAfee's free online technical chat. On the plus side, McAfee's online support site contains a handy wizardlike Answer Center that helps you pinpoint and resolve technical problems. And the live technicians, once we contacted them via chat, were always polite and helpful.
Unfortunately, we often found the chat queue to be unbearably long, day or night; once we waited 1 hour and 20 minutes. Chat also exhibited flaky behavior: we were once booted off after 15 minutes in the queue, even though we hadn't yet chatted with anyone. Hopefully, McAfee will correct these technical glitches soon.
User opinions
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User Rating: 
6/10
Sorry experience from A to Z!!
Pros: None - Nada, Zip, Zero!!
Cons: One of the most frustrating software experiences in years!
User Rating: 
1/10
A huge hog on your system, that still does not work half of the time.
Pros: Great interface.
Cons: Would not stay running. It often went from - enabled to disabled- frequently.
User Rating: 
2/10
Gave it a try and am going back to Norton.
Pros: Maybe a little more protection
Cons: Rare when it works perfect. Very frustrating.
User Rating: 1/10
Not for older computers
Pros: No pros to speak of
Cons: Slows down older computers horribly, annoying auto-updates
The auto-update feature ends up consuming a large amount of disk space (on the order of hundreds of megs per update) -- maybe not a big deal if you have a modern computer with >20G of space, but definitely an issue on an older machine.
I wouldn't consider installing this on a machine that is not faster than a PIII 1ghz, or with less than 1G of ram.
I wasted alot of time and money installing and then trying to get rid of this product.
Why can't anyone provide light-weight anti-virus protection? Just because computers these days are faster it doesn't mean we want an anti-virus program to be a hog regardless of the protection it affords us.
User Rating: 
10/10
Best AV on the market
Pros: Strong and consistent
Cons: None that I've seen to date
I haven't heard of one software company that hasn't had a run in w/ some customers issue...no product is meant for everyone. I've worked in the IT world for big companies and protected my home network and individual desktops w/ a variety of products...McAfee is what I suggest when asked and is what I pick.
User Rating: 1/10
Horrible and useless
Pros: Pretty red box
Cons: Where do I begin?
I even tried writing out the details of my issue via email in an attempt to get a usable solution and it's been a week so far with no response.
Avoid this software at all costs because it is a waste of money.
User Rating: 
5/10
Email customer support is software
Pros: As far as I'm concerned, withoput good customer service the product is useless.
Cons: Cannot be selective with a scheduled run....program scans EVERYTHING when using schedule. Customer Service(email) is software program..
User Rating: 
7/10
Blows Norton and Trend Micro out of the water!!
Pros: After using both Norton AV 2004 and Trend Micro Security Suite 2004, I found the McAfee AV Pro Edition the easiest and finest to use. Norton was a heavy resource user on the computer and the tests ran very slow. The installation of it was a joke, due to t
Cons: none, possibly the excess McAfee ads during the homepage display
User Rating: 
3/10
Annoying automatic updates
Pros: Good anti-virus software.
Cons: Wants to connect to check for updates every time computer is turned on (Win 98 SE and Win Me). Controls to set for manual check for updates do not work. Really dumbed down interface that does not allow user to tweak for maximum usability. Overall, a maj
User Rating: 3/10
Ouch! Did Pontiac get their hands on this?
Pros: I just don't know. I provided a copy of my correspondence with McAfee...
Cons: Viruscan 8.0 Unfortunately, this is the only forum I could readily find to evaluate and comment upon your Viruscan product. I finally gave up on finding an appropriate forum. I'll just start with my extreme disappointment. I've been recommending McAfe
User Rating: 1/10
Don't buy it if you are a gamer or use Outlook 2K
Pros: Detects and Cleint
Cons: Everything else. I'll start with the worst and work my way down the list. Like most gamers I always disable virus protection before going on-line to play games. However, McAfee is almost impossible to disable. Even after I had done everything concieva
User Rating: 5/10
I like McAfee BUT!
Pros: very easyily installed, no problems as with NAV wich tends to hang system or come up with some error even on a freshly installed system. Is very stable and detects viruses which NAV seems to ignore. I like the NEWS update that notifies you when a new viru
Cons: Updates are VERY VERY poor, it askes to update then asks for my email address (*** ... AGAIN!), after I enter the email address, it notifies that I do not have access or something of the sort .. hey I just installed it.. well, what bothers me most is the
User Rating: 3/10
will give you more mcafee pop-ups and ads than it deletes
Pros:
Cons: This product is offensive. The anti-virus works ok but misses some spyware. But you will be constantly deleting mcafee pop-ups to try to get you to buy other products, update, etc. every time i log on for a few minutes, i get a few pop ups from mcafee
User Rating: 
8/10
Pretty good, does the job.
Pros: Is a decent antivirus program. Easy setup and strong virus detection from McAfee virus dat files.
Cons: Virus definition updating is performed via a website similiar to the windows update site. This is poor, in my opinion. I would prefer the way Norton updates work - via an invisible auto-update mode. Also, you cannot password protect the antivirus softw
User Rating: 
9/10
Flawlness installation in minutes..User friendly interface..Overall much better than NAV
Pros: Interface is user friendly..Installation was a cinch compared to Norton's antivirus which froze my computer several times on pre-installation scan. Scanning is thorough and fast. It's very easy to use..Security center is very helpful. It doesn't slow do
Cons:
User Rating: 7/10
Quite a nice AV program...
Pros: Everything went fine for installation, nothing went 'buggy' compared to its previous versions. After launching MVS, the new interface is very nice and a change too. Performance was very good, it didn't slow down my computer compared to Norton. I quite lik
Cons: Disappointing for no firewall, which made it stand out for a good price for AV + firewall in v7. Scanning files took longer compared to v7 which was faster. I talked and viewed other people's comments about the features and I agree about it was 'dumbed do
User Rating: 5/10
I wouldnt use it...
Pros: Deep down, this is an excellent virus scanner... deep deep down.
Cons: The new interface is terrible! it has a whole load of tabs for other mcafee products that i do not have or have any intention of getting. It covers me with a whole load of useless information like "security indexes" which i dont care about. The whole inte
User Rating: 6/10
Better than Norton Anti-Virus 2004
Pros: Uses less resources, starts up faster during boot up and much better than NAV 2004. I used NAV 2004 for 2 weeks and was very disappointed by it. The activation is a joke and NAV2004 gave me a couple problems during the software download phase. It kept fre
Cons: none so far.
User Rating: 3/10
Forget Your Privacy!!
Pros: This product will stop the virus threats.
Cons: Tries to connect to Mcafee even when told to stop. When you try to get an update you get hit with ads (This is very unprofessional) I bought it and could not get an update even 4 days later?But I did get their add every time I logged on for an update. Tri
User Rating: 5/10
Abysmal support.
Pros: Where it's good, great...
Cons: ...where it's bad (anything related to product support), AWFUL!
