

Your PC Is Doomed: Dissecting McAfee's Predatory Emails - codingthewheel
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-poor.html

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bshep
It's interesting to see when a new anti-virus comes out how the product is
streamlined, fast, unobtrusive and the emails are friendly.

As a few years go by they all tend to turn into 'marketing machines', they are
no longer interested in making a good product, just a shiny one. And by
'shiny' I mean: colorful, bloated and slow.

Maybe the marketing people take control? Maybe they get bought up by the
bigger companies? I really don't know.

I'm dreading the day I need to buy an AV for my mac :-/

Note: From around '97 on these were the AVs I used, I usually switched when
the UI became too bloated:

\- Norton

\- McAfee

\- F-prot ( was still fast last time I checked )

\- Panda

\- Avast

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pepijndevos
Imagine how I felt after I received an email from PayPal for a survey after I
contacted their support. They had an option to do the survey anonymously, the
url ended like this: ?survey_id=2294&user_id=[...]&anon=yes

I have to trust a company with my money while they include my user_id in
"anonymous" data?

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cmars232
Have to use McAfee at big corporate day job. It's amazing how much faster a
full-blown development environment runs on the same hardware when dual-booted
into Linux.

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rick_2047
Wow!! Really, WOW!!!!

I didn't realize any of this till I read the article. It is interesting to
learn how your mind learns to block out such things after years of receiving
such emails and ignoring them. We even learn to ignore an email just by
reading the subject.

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getonit
I once installed McAfee on a friend's computer, against my better judgement
(he's a complete technophobe, had been sold it at some generic computer shop
and been scared of installing it himself but sunk-investment and all that).

McAfee said the machine was clean, although it was still showing some
suspicious, if not definitive, signs of being infected. Uninstalled McAfee,
installed AVG free, and AVG found six viruses. Six. One I'd heard of, and I've
no particular interest in this kind of thing. That's as damning a verdict as
I've ever seen, in my book.

If I'd not have doubted McAfee, he'd have carried on with a false sense of
security. McAfee is, and always has been, worse than nothing at all - at least
with nothing at all, you know you're probably infected.

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sabat
Ironically, your PC is probably safer without McAfee on your computer. McAfee
has a reputation for being slow to get signatures out for new viruses, and for
not playing well with Windows OS. With good, free alternatives available, I
wouldn't recommend anyone use McAfee products.

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tman
Microsoft Security Essentials is free now, works at least as well as the other
anti-virus programs, and doesn't get in your face about it.

If Microsoft had released it in 1999 instead of 2009, they wouldn't have Apple
and Google nipping at their heels today. It's that simple.

~~~
eli
Released it? They should have built it into the OS (on by default)

I still don't quite understand why they chose _antivirus_ as the extra piece
of software that requires a legit windows install. People running pirated
versions of Windows without antivirus are exactly the people causing grief for
the rest of us (spam, botnets).

~~~
tman
Absolutely right. That's actually what I was thinking. It should be built into
the OS. Same for adblock in IE (too late for that, maybe).

And there needs to be serious backup software built into every version of
Windows (not just the premium versions). The recovery discs should be as
ubiquitous as AOL CDs, recovery partitions on every hard drive, etc. Backups
should be on by default and as simple to use as Time Machine.

In fact, if they were really going to do it right, they'd go to a repository
system for software (like Linux uses), give free online backups for user data
to everyone, and basically make the process of duplicating your home computer
somewhere and somewhen else a point and click exercise.

Instead, what we get is a company that manages to steal Apple's _bad_ ideas,
ignores its own innovative ideas, and delivers products that are only 90%
there. It's painful to see so much wasted potential.

Ah well, if Microsoft shareholders ever get tired of Ballmer and want to give
me a call, I'm on the internet.

