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McAfee Total Protection 2008
Price: £59.99 inc VAT

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 01/12/2007
Featured in magazine:
Issue 173
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: McAfee
Tel: 020 7949 0107
Web Address: http://uk.mcafee.com


Computer boffins know that there's a wealth of free software out there to protect your PC. Unfortunately, this means wading through a vast array of security products and a sea of information – and you could still be left with that niggling doubt that you might have missed something. The easier (if more pricey) option is to get an all-in-one suite like McAfee's, which aims to provide everything you need to keep your PC secure.

Features:
There are several McAfee suites available, but Total Protection is the one most people will be looking at, as it offers complete integrated protection. With anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, back-up (though not online, unfortunately), general PC maintenance and network security, it keeps everything you need to stay secure in one simple console. It's also produced with home networking in mind, so you can protect three PCs on your network without paying any extra cash, and administer them all from your main computer, if you wish.

Performance:
McAfee has a fair reputation for keeping internet nasties at bay, but a major security flaw in 2006 and a few less-than-perfect results in third-party tests published on the web – Virus Bulletin's Windows Vista test in February 2007 (www.virusbtn.com) and comparative results from AV Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org) – show its anti-virus protection to be a few places short of top of the class. The firewall fared well in our tests but other areas of the suite seemed under-powered. Some of the clean-up utilities just put a prettier face on tools already present in Windows and the parental controls didn't offer time-based restrictions, which is one of the main features parents will want on bedroom PCs.

Ease of use:
Having all your security programs bundled together is a benefit if you can't face working it all out for yourself. The main screen gives an at-a-glance guide to whether you're protected or not and you can drill down further via the menus. It isn't the prettiest of interfaces by today's standards but it's functional and we found no difficulty in tweaking where we wanted and ignoring where we didn't. Some elements, like the network options, make securing more than one PC significantly easier, too.

Value for money:
Since you can get most of what this suite covers for free, it doesn't strictly offer any kind of value for money. Instead, the emphasis is on compatibility, coherence, a single control panel and access to support, and it's got all those.

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• PC Pitstop
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