McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 V6.0

Manufacturer:	McAfee
Release date:	03 October, 2003

McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 V6.0

Average rating: Stars

Poor performance

I got this coupled with Dell. As a not so savvy computer user, I was happy because they gave me 15 months subscription with it. I had the same problems as the other reviewers. The same problems kept popping up. After a couple of months the firewall itself kept me from connecting to the internet. I called my ISP and I was finally able to connect to the internet when I turned off ALL the functions (firewall, antivirus, spamkiller). So what's the point. The only reason I needed it was to keep me from being hacked, but if it cannot even do that because I have to turn it off before my computer can function, I wasted my money.

Spamkiller deserves an entirely new pharagraph. It keeps hijacking my Outlook e-mails to its own inbox. I called MacAfee multiple times, and not one solution they offered really helped me. They charge for phone support. The support people are on the verge of being rude, and they keep directing me to a webpage that have instructions (which are not clear) on how to correct my problem, none of them worked. I installed, reinstalled, it would work for a while, then it is back to its own atrocious behavior. If I uninstall and reinstall, I have to reconfigure all my Outlook e-mails manually again.

I knew I was not having the same problem as the rest when I went to their support website, and what do you know? The first question in the shortcut was, if I was having any problems receiving my e-mail with the Spamkiller. I had Norton before, lucky there was a rebate and coupon at Costco, and I paid all of $5.00 for it. I uninstalled my MacAfee even I still have 10 months worth of subscription with it, installed Norton and my computer runs without problems. It configured itself with all my e-mail accounts at Outlook even without any effort on my part. Norton puts all my e-mails in my inbox, and with a click of a button in the taskbar, I can instruct the program that a certain e-mail is spam, and it will not appear in my inbox again, including e-mails of the same patterns. If you are concerned that it took some legitimate e-mails as spam you can send it back to your inbox. That simple. MacAfee makes it too complicated. Their interface is beautiful, but it is rotten in the inside.

McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 V6.0 - McAfee

Plan on a lot of customer support

Installed the software as per the instructions (using the defaults) and all hell broke loose.

Tried to contact McAfee thru their web page support service. (You have to chat with them because that is the only free customer service offered. No telephone service because they charge you a fee for that.)

I discovered on my own that the default setting is to filter chat rooms. Go figure. I uninstalled the software, took the chat room filter off, and had to spend an additional five hours chatting with their customer support service to fix all the problems I have been experiencing.

Some of the problems you will discover is that this software does not like Windows Service Pack 2 or any other additional security software to be installed on your computer. Furthermore, it does not like to have the Windows Firewall turned on when installing. Keep these words of caution in mind. There are numerous other problems, but I don't want to bore anyone. I did finally manage to get this software to function properly, but only after numerous attemps on my own and thru countless customer support sessions. I would estimate I spent a total of 15-18 hours de-bugging this junk.

This software has an overall rating of "2 Stars" as rated by approximately 70 other Amazon.com users. The problem is approximately 70 different Amazon.com user gave a similar "2 Star" rating for the other Software offerd by Symantic - Norton Internet Security 2005. My next purchase will be the Norton Internet Security 2005 because it had a better rating in the Consumers Report and I can't imagine it being any worse.

McAfee - McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 V6.0

Do not buy this software

When I first installed McAfee, I had problems with it already. The program will not install in my computer. So I contacted their Tech Support via their webpage. One out four Technical Chat Support I contacted, only one of them was able to help me. (They charge to speak to Tech Support via phone). I've only had the software for one week, but it always has some issues popping up, i.e. One of the four programs not installed or updated, computer crashes, etc. After I've finally updated all the program then another problem came up, The Spamkiller and Firewall that is included on this software had conflicted with my outlook express which caused me to not be able to receive e-mails from outlook. This software is a waste of time and money. I'am now uninstalling it from my computer. Please do some research first before buying anything especially computer software.

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