Antivirus software - McAfee, ESET, Malwarebytes etc

[Jonetc15]

I have left it until literally the last moment, having bought a new computer with windows 10 a day before Windows 7 loses Microsoft support.

I will be really grateful for advice – pros and cons – for McAfee in particular as well as ESET and Malwarebytes. Many thanks in advance for any replies.

Jon

[production100]

Hi Jon,

Congratulations on the new computer.

I suspect you will get as many answers to this as there are replies as antivirus software is very much an individual thing!

The normal windows 10 built in antivirus seems to be as good as any. I would personally avoid using any other. Various others have been found to slow down the pc - it very much depends on the settings of the pc, some work well for months and then suddenly seem to slow everything down.

The built in antivirus passes tests as well as the majority of others and being built in is 'more likely' to work well with windows 10. (although with Microsoft software testing of windows 10 being so poor it is always a gamble whether their updates work, the antivirus seems to update ok).

I personally use malwarebytes every few weeks as a second check, but disable it from running all the time. It has yet to find anything, which gives me a confidence check.

Both are free which always helps.

Good luck,

Chris

[Breelander]

I have left it until literally the last moment, having bought a new computer with windows 10 a day before Windows 7 loses Microsoft support.
I will be really grateful for advice – pros and cons – for McAfee in particular as well as ESET and Malwarebytes.

This is not Windows 7, the built-in Defender in Windows 10 is more than enough on its own and is all that I use. It consistently gets a 'Top Product' rating from the AV-TEST Institute and is the equal of most other well known names. Their current rating gives Defender exactly the same score as McAfee.

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

3rd-party AV's hook themselves deep into the Windows kernel This has been seen to cause problems when it comes time to upgrade W10 to the next version. Once they have their hooks in the system they can be notoriously difficult to uninstall. Just uninstalling may not be enough, each of the 'big names' has to provide a tool to remove the last traces.

For Enterprise customers detection of Potentially Unwanted Programs/Applications (PUP/PUA) is enabled by default. The signatures for those malware are included in the regular updates, but detection is not normally enabled for private users. It can be enabled though in all editions from Home up.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/322 ... -10-a.html

[bungeejumper]

3rd-party AV's hook themselves deep into the Windows kernel This has been seen to cause problems when it comes time to upgrade W10 to the next version. Once they have their hooks in the system they can be notoriously difficult to uninstall. Just uninstalling may not be enough, each of the 'big names' has to provide a tool to remove the last traces.

McAfee used to be a real pain in the bum to remove, and I still groan a bit when I see its free 30 day trial pre-installed into a Windows 10 machine. For some reason the supplied uninstaller tool never seemed to work very well, and on more than one occasion I was reduced to manually deleting its program folders just to get rid of the damn thing. There's also a bit of a cross-your-fingers moment afterwards, when you reboot to see whether your computer will ever start up successfully again after you've killed part of its opening strategy.

I still use Kaspersky, which is probably a bit too belt-and-braces for some people. I used to use Norton, but it was such a shocking resources hog - I think they may have sorted that one now?

BJ

[Infrasonic]

I used to use Norton, but it was such a shocking resources hog - I think they may have sorted that one now?
BJ

I look after a ten year old HP duo core W10 desktop PC with Norton for someone else, and it's still a PITA for resource hogging.
(Ironically it gives alerts for high CPU usage, which most of the time is itself...)
The owner has assured me they won't be renewing the Norton service contract when it expires in the spring, at which point I will gladly let Windows Security take over...

[Lootman]

3rd-party AV's hook themselves deep into the Windows kernel This has been seen to cause problems when it comes time to upgrade W10 to the next version. Once they have their hooks in the system they can be notoriously difficult to uninstall. Just uninstalling may not be enough, each of the 'big names' has to provide a tool to remove the last traces.

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

[bungeejumper]

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

Nope. Welcome to a lifetime of annoying pop-ups. Although I suspect you could at least suppress the reminders through Task Manager, the program would still be chuntering away in the background until you finally chopped its little digital legs off and threw it down a well.

BJ

[ReformedCharacter]

3rd-party AV's hook themselves deep into the Windows kernel This has been seen to cause problems when it comes time to upgrade W10 to the next version. Once they have their hooks in the system they can be notoriously difficult to uninstall. Just uninstalling may not be enough, each of the 'big names' has to provide a tool to remove the last traces.

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

Generally no. In the case of McAfee:

After your subscription expires, McAfee becomes adware and can give you pop-ups at any time with no clear way to disable them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/ ... e_becomes/

I can't speak for the current offerings but certain antivirus products including McAfee have a reputation of not being completely removed even after uninstallation. I've heard enough bad stuff about both McAfee and Norton over the years to give them both a wide berth. When asked I usually suggest the free version of Avast although I don't know how well it does in current tests. However it does try hard to sell other products and install other security items which are probably not needed. As Bree suggests, they're probably not worth it on Win10.

RC

[Breelander]

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

No, it nags you perpetually after it expires. The best thing to do with a new machine when setting it up for the first time is to decline the offer of a 'free trial' so that it never gets installed in the first place.

[Lootman]

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

No, it nags you perpetually after it expires. The best thing to do with a new machine when setting it up for the first time is to decline the offer of a 'free trial' so that it never gets installed in the first place.

Ah, I see, so they don't actually come pre-installed, but rather I effectively installed it myself by accepting the trial?

Thank you, I will be buying a new machine soon and will be sure to not make that mistake again..

[Infrasonic]

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

No, it nags you perpetually after it expires. The best thing to do with a new machine when setting it up for the first time is to decline the offer of a 'free trial' so that it never gets installed in the first place.

Ah, I see, so they don't actually come pre-installed, but rather I effectively installed it myself by accepting the trial?

Thank you, I will be buying a new machine soon and will be sure to not make that mistake again..

In the Start menu (Windows logo) if you right mouse click on many of the apps you'll have the option to uninstall them, so it's a good idea to go through all the bloatware with a new machine and get rid of everything you don't need.
(Think about it first though, some of the apps like the OEM's diagnostics/registration apps are actually potentially useful for warranty issues et al later on.)

[XFool]

Every new machine seems to come with Norton or McAffee installed along with a "free trial". If you don't pay for the product when the trial period ends then I assumed that the product would just de-activate itself.

Does it not?

No, it nags you perpetually after it expires. The best thing to do with a new machine when setting it up for the first time is to decline the offer of a 'free trial' so that it never gets installed in the first place.

MacAfee supply their own removal tool (from their website), which I used when my free trial period ran out.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I have left it until literally the last moment, having bought a new computer with windows 10 a day before Windows 7 loses Microsoft support.

I will be really grateful for advice – pros and cons – for McAfee in particular as well as ESET and Malwarebytes. Many thanks in advance for any replies.

Jon

Windows security software is more than adequate. Don't consider McAfee, it's terrible. I have had my new laptop for just over a year now and the very first thing I did was remove McAfee. If you have a non windows package already running you will have to turn windows security on if you remove the installed software.

Hope you enjoy your new computer

AiYn'U

[SalvorHardin]

Norton is much less of a resource hog than it used to be. I use it as part of a package with Norton Mobile Security which runs on my phones and tablets. Mobile Security has a really good reputation.

Lots of people don't bother with anti-virus and other security programs on mobiles and tablets; IMHO that's a big mistake.

When Norton on the laptop runs a full system scan I schedule something else to do during the 30 to 40 minutes it takes, because it does tend to slow the laptop down considerably.

Malwarebytes is excellent. It picks up a lot of stuff that the antivirus programs ignore, notably PUPs, potentially unwanted (annoying) programs (and browser extensions) that have a habit of sneaking in through web browsers. The free version is good enough for most people; I'm a bit paranoid so I pay for the full version which includes real-time warnings about websites. It doesn't conflict with Norton.

Not a fan of McAfee. Too slow and it doesn't give you enough information as to what's going on.

[Jonetc15]

Hi Jon,

Congratulations on the new computer.

I suspect you will get as many answers to this as there are replies as antivirus software is very much an individual thing!

The normal windows 10 built in antivirus seems to be as good as any. I would personally avoid using any other. Various others have been found to slow down the pc - it very much depends on the settings of the pc, some work well for months and then suddenly seem to slow everything down.

The built in antivirus passes tests as well as the majority of others and being built in is 'more likely' to work well with windows 10. (although with Microsoft software testing of windows 10 being so poor it is always a gamble whether their updates work, the antivirus seems to update ok).

I personally use malwarebytes every few weeks as a second check, but disable it from running all the time. It has yet to find anything, which gives me a confidence check.

Both are free which always helps.

Good luck,

Chris

Very many thanks indeed Chris, and others subsequently, for such a clear opinion. I lack the skill to put together a reply that has bits of several other replies that thanks everyone properly for their contributions. But I do want to say how very grateful I am.

All the very best

Jon

[Jonetc15]

....3rd-party AV's hook themselves deep into the Windows kernel This has been seen to cause problems when it comes time to upgrade W10 to the next version. Once they have their hooks in the system they can be notoriously difficult to uninstall. Just uninstalling may not be enough, each of the 'big names' has to provide a tool to remove the last traces.

Thank you very much for a detailed reply, Breelander. If I am entitled to a tool to remove the last traces, how do I get one? I suspect that this is way above my IT pay grade...

ATB
Jon

[Breelander]

If I am entitled to a tool to remove the last traces, how do I get one?

Google for the name of your antivirus plus by the words 'removal tool'. For McAfee you'll get this...

http://mcafee-removal-tool.com/

[airbus330]

Have been using Mcafee for more than 10 years. Its not great and has occasionally been very annoying. But it has definitely improved over the years and now works in the background unobtrusively. Each year I buy a 3 pc license product key off ebay for about £7 and use the product key whilst logged into my McA account. It upgrades the software and job done. The reason I bother is, perhaps now unnecessarily, that i want to be able to prove to any bank/investment platform/cc that, should I have a data breach, I have taken reasonable steps to prevent it.
I'm now upgraded to W10 and feel that Defender may be adequate going forward, but up until last month I was all Win7, which needed the added protection.
Worth noting for anyone stuck on Win7 that a free upgrade to Win10 is still available via the Windows Creation Tool. It worked smoothly for me a couple of weeks back and there is info on some of the tech sites as to why Microsoft still allow the backdoor. The only proviso is that you need a genuine registered version of Win7 running on the pc prior to attempting the upgrade. Perhaps the OP can breathe some new life into his old pc. One thing that has surprised me is how Win10 has improved over the years. It was truly grim on release, but has not slowed my old pc down at all.
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/6734 ... -tool.html

[Jonetc15]

Have been using Mcafee for more than 10 years. Its not great and has occasionally been very annoying. But it has definitely improved over the years and now works in the background unobtrusively. Each year I buy a 3 pc license product key off ebay for about £7 and use the product key whilst logged into my McA account. It upgrades the software and job done. The reason I bother is, perhaps now unnecessarily, that i want to be able to prove to any bank/investment platform/cc that, should I have a data breach, I have taken reasonable steps to prevent it.
I'm now upgraded to W10 and feel that Defender may be adequate going forward, but up until last month I was all Win7, which needed the added protection.
Worth noting for anyone stuck on Win7 that a free upgrade to Win10 is still available via the Windows Creation Tool. It worked smoothly for me a couple of weeks back and there is info on some of the tech sites as to why Microsoft still allow the backdoor. The only proviso is that you need a genuine registered version of Win7 running on the pc prior to attempting the upgrade. Perhaps the OP can breathe some new life into his old pc. One thing that has surprised me is how Win10 has improved over the years. It was truly grim on release, but has not slowed my old pc down at all.
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/6734 ... -tool.html

Very many thanks indeed airbus330. I will certainly follow this up to see if I can keep my old PC functioning online. A very interesting suggestion.

ATB
Jon