Drop, charge, and lose the cords
Entered CNET Catalog: 08/30/2004
SKU: MCF60E001RAA
Manufacturer: McAfee
Manufacturer description
Are you vulnerable to identity theft? Internet hackers know thousands of ways to break into vulnerable PC systems. In seconds, they can steal private files, credit card information, tax records, passwords and Social Security Numbers. Remote thieves can even hijack your system to send spam messages. Or plant destructive viruses. On broadband or dial-up, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 2005 provides a secure, always-on barrier between your computer's hard drive and hostile Internet threats. It combines perfectly with your McAfee VirusScan anti-virus protection for multi-layered PC defense against sophisticated viruses like Mydoom, which can open up communication backdoors on computers.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 10/22/2004
Our installation of McAfee Personal Firewall took three minutes and proceeded without incident, after which a quick system reboot launched the product. The firewall installs with the default Standard settings, which are intended to balance security with convenience, offering common protections without inhibiting Web features such as streaming media or ActiveX Controls. A Run Setup Assistant feature is also available in the Utilities dialog to tailor the firewall's operation. It allows you to heighten security for some apps and lower security for others. We wish that the assistant would run automatically after the program's initial installation rather than making you hunt it down.
Overall, we found the McAfee Personal Firewall interface confusing. While it's clean and attractive, you have to dig for the details. Since each layer of the menu pops up in its own window, drilling down to the Firewall Settings menu, for example, requires opening a new dialog box, then the Personal Firewall overview dialog box, and finally the Firewall Settings dialog box. A single-dialog menu system would be less confusing. Unfortunately, even after you dig down several layers, the customization is not as granular as that found within Norton Personal Firewall.
New to MPF 6.0 is protection against phishing scams, which attempt to steal your online banking information. McAfee now alerts you to the potential for fraud anytime an Internet source requests your credit card or social security information. ZoneAlarm Pro has had a similar feature for years.
We informally tested our MPF 2005 installation against Gibson Research's ShieldsUp tool. MPF 2005 protected our computer's data during the test.
Although McAfee provides free e-mail support (our test question was answered in several hours) and online chat assistance, you'll have to pay a hefty fee for telephone support: $39.95 per incident, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CT. Both Symantec and ZoneLabs charge similar fees for telephone support. We think that's unfair for home users, who don't have an IT department standing by.
The McAfee support site is an important source of information, including help with the installation, downloading, patches, and error issues.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4
User Rating: 
6/10
The product is basic and easy to use
Pros: Ideal for beginers, and is of great value for money
Cons: The constant updates is extremely annoying.
User Rating: 
2/10
XP media edition not supported
Pros: easy to use
Cons: XP media edition not supported
User Rating: 
8/10
Interestingly unique
Pros: Pretty strong firewall, easy to configure if user has had previous firewall experience, visual trace tool, banning of unwanted IP addresses and vice versa for wanted IPs
Cons: Begginers may have a little trouble if they are interested in tuning it, but for set-it-and-forget-it, a good choice
The types of users this firewall is best for is very unique. For advanced users who don't want as many resources taken up by firewalls such as ZA, yet want a good enough firewall to get the job done, MPF does fine. For begginer users who may wish and/or need to tune the firewall and make changes, navigating may be difficult. But, due to the decently prepaired default settings, begginer users who just want to install the firewall and not have to worry about messing with it will do just fine.
I particulary like how you can trust certain IP addresses to pass through the firewall, or vice versa and ban an IP address from comunicating with your computer altogether. The visual trace seems to work well. And, if desired, you may even use the tracer to trace a web address via a link in the McAfee Security Center. I like that hidden feature, nice touch.
The Smart Recomendations which decide for the user whether or not to trust a program work pretty well, although it can be a little to trustworthy with applications found in Windows, but it's no cause for a big alarm. Advanced and even intermediate users can disable or limit the Smart Recomendations and lock the computer like a fortress.
Beginners: The section below will probobly only make sense to advanced users, it's not neccary but adds some good points.
Out of all the firewall's I've tried, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus and ZoneAlarm seem to do the best. They both equally block the same amout of traffic for me. I have talked with some techies and tell them of how McAfee blocks just as much for me as ZoneAlarm does, and they get snotty and say ''Well, is the blocked traffic for real?'' <(Happens every time) Immediatly I know they're going into the ''frequent PING'' excuse because I know they refuse to face the truth. I very seldom get any pings so they're attempts at getting me to hate this firewall quickly fly out the window. Frequently blocked pings? Try various port scans and trojan scans that get blocked.
Overall this firewall will basicaly offer protection just as good as ZoneAlarm, but navigation could be made a little easier. If done so, I think MPF and ZA would basicaly be tied in score often.
User Rating: 
7/10
It is kinda cloudy to use
Pros: But If you are a pro computer user you can use it as well as any firewall
Cons: If you do not know how to configure ports with a firewall The zonelabs is the best way to go
