I have both McAfee Security Center and Avast antivirus (free edition) on my PC. McAfee just sent me a notice saying that my subscription will expire soon and an offer to renew it at $69.99 for another year. Avast is working fine and is free. Can I do without the McAfee and just keep Avast? Or do the other features of McAfee (anti-spam, anti-hacker, anti-abuse) worth the money? Are there other free software programs for these other features that could make up for what McAfee offers without paying $70.00/year? Thanks.
Avast Free Antivirus and Avast Internet Security both provide the same levels of security, with the addition of a Sandbox for Isolating applications and SafeZone for secure online banking (antilogging), as well as a Firewall and other tools. Compare Top Antivirus UK: Norton vs BullGuard in the Antivirus UK world. All Categories. Career & Education. Avast Antivirus has both free and premium antivirus software to protect PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices against threats. McAfee Total Protection. McAfee LiveSafe. Antivirus Plus 2015. Internet Security 2015. Total Security 2015. Both McAfee and Avast got the top honor, which is the “ADVANCED +” award, but McAfee’s impact score (the lower the better) was 7.3, which is considerably better than Avast’s 8.9. So, it’s clear from the independent tests that McAfee is slightly lighter on system resources than Avast, but the latter is not far behind in this race.
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by PCWorld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
- See it
McAfee is a longtime name in the world of PC security. These days the company sells four security products for home users: McAfee Antivirus Plus, Internet Security, Live Safe, and Total Protection. This review is looking at McAfee Total Protection, which along with other McAfee products, recently got an upgrade. McAfee says the new Total Protection packs improved anti-malware protection, and a uniform interface on both PC and Mac.
Version 4.5.x of the McAfee security products for Mac (such as Internet Security, Total Protection, McAfee All Access) are supported on macOS 10.12 and later. Internet Security for Mac 4.1.x is supported on Mac OSX 10.11. Internet Security for Mac 3.9 is supported on Mac OSX 10.10. Our software library provides a free download of McAfee Endpoint Protection for Mac 2.3. The program lies within Security Tools, more precisely Mac protection. The actual developer of this Mac application is McAfee, Inc. The following versions: 2.2 and 2.1 are the most frequently downloaded ones by the program users. McAfee Security 1.5 for Mac can be downloaded from our software library for free. This Mac application is an intellectual property of McAfee. The software lies within Security Tools, more precisely Mac protection. Our antivirus check shows that this Mac download is malware free. The latest installer that can be downloaded is 153.5 MB in size. McAfee is a leader in online vulnerability protection. Learn more about our easy-to-use security products & download our free antivirus software trial today! Download Antivirus for Mac, PC & Mobile - Free 30 Day Trial! McAfee.
McAfee Internet Security 2012 for Mac is available as a free download on our application library. The most frequent installer filenames for the application include: mcafeeinternetsecurityf.dmg and McAfee Internet Security f.dmg etc. Our built-in antivirus checked this Mac download and rated it as virus free.
Total Protection comes at a variety of price points depending on how many devices you want to license. For a single device you’ll pay $60, add another $20 and you get Total Protection for five devices, and for $100 you’ll get coverage for 10 devices. McAfee only licenses a maximum of five True Key password/identity manager installations per subscriber, however, even if you pay the price to cover 10 devices. Live Safe comes with the same limit on True Key, but offers unlimited device installations.
Total Protection’s interface is well designed, but at the same time I found it a little confusing. Some information is stored in the left rail, for example, while others are in the main panel, and still others are in both spots at once.
Mcafee For Mac Free
At the top of the window you get five tabs: Home, PC Security, Identity, Privacy, and Account. There are also icons for alerts, tips, and settings in the top-right corner.
Note: This review is part of our best antivirus roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.
Home is your basic dashboard with a green check mark or red alert to let you know whether your PC is protected. It also includes quick links for running a PC scan, setting up True Key, checking application updates on your PC, and removing cookies and trackers from your browsers. Above those basic tiles there’s also a carousel with various information such as how many web connections McAfee has blocked—for Windows 10 users that can be a lot—and how many files have been scanned.
PC Security is a deeper dive into your PC’s status. The left rail features at-a-glance information such as whether the firewall and real-time scanning are active. The main panel of this tab, meanwhile, features four small tiles that are similar to what we saw under the Home tab, with options to run a security scan, application updates, virus updates, and to browse McAfee’s history. The carousel, meanwhile, prompts you to activate features related to PC security such as checking that your third-party applications are up to date.
Identity consists of three basic things: the True Key identity manager, a file shredder for deleting sensitive files, and McAfee Web Advisor. The latter is a separate download that is supposed to protect you from online threats by warning you about problems before you encounter them. It includes “misclick protection” to block malware or prevent landing on a phishing site via a bad link, typo protection that addresses mistyped URLs of popular websites, eg Google.com versus Gooogel.com. If you’re a novice or casual PC user, Advisor could be a helpful tool, but advanced users could find it more of an annoyance than anything else.
Privacy includes parental controls, another tile to remove cookies and trackers from your browsers, a file vault to secure sensitive files with encryption and a password. There’s also an interesting Threat Map tile that lets you see the top threats in the world or in your corner of the global network, including malware, malicious hacker IP addresses, and other information.
Finally, Account contains your account information, including the time remaining on your subscription.
Overall, McAfee packed a lot of information and features in Total Protection, and it’s all fairly well organized, though splitting information between the left rail and the main panel is a little confusing. Total Protection’s rotating carousel also feels like space that could be put to better use. It takes up so much of the interface while the essential tools are restricted to small tiles at the bottom of each tab.
Is Avast Free Or Mcafee Total Protection Better For Macbook Pro
Another quibble is that McAfee opens a second window to carry out almost any operation, from running a scan to digitally shredding files. Total Protection has such a large window by default, it would be better if everything just happened there. The only exception to that rule might be File Lock, which integrates with File Explorer.
Perhaps a single-window approach would add complexity to the app’s navigation or reduce responsiveness, but multiple windows adds to that feeling of wasted space.
The app also won’t amaze you with slickness or design. It’s very understated, but that’s probably a good thing in a security suite, which should be part of your PC’s plumbing. Things can get messy without it, but you’d rather not have to think about it too much when it’s working.
McAfee does have pop-up notifications that appear now and then, and Total Protection’s carousel does take up too much space to promote True Key and Web Advisor. Overall, however, McAfee stays out of your way while you work. Avast passwords premium activation code for mac.
Performance
Both A-V Comparatives and A-V Test took a look at McAfee and its security protection performed very well. A-V Test found malware and zero-day attack detection was 99 percent in June during testing with 202 samples. Malware detection was 100 percent from more than 10,000 samples, and there were no false detections for websites or legitimate software downloads.
A-V Comparatives, meanwhile, found that McAfee had seven false positives during a real-world protection test, but it also detected 100 percent of all 329 malicious test samples. Malware defenses were really good during an online scan, at 99.4 percent, while offline detection was low at 78.8 percent. There were also 9 false alarms during these tests of nearly 38,000 samples.
When we ran Total Protection through our usual Handbrake and PCMark 8 tests, we found McAfee had a minor impact on performance. Handbrake completed its job of transcoding a 3.8GB high definition video file in one hour, 18 minutes, and 24 seconds. The standard time for our Windows 10 test PC without any extra programs running is one hour, 15 minutes, and 30 seconds. That means the PC took slightly longer than usual with McAfee running, but for a home user, that difference won’t have a massive impact.
PC Mark 8, meanwhile, got a score of 2,527 with McAfee running, and 2,532 without. That’s a small drop in performance and unlikely to be noticeable to most users.
Conclusion
McAfee is a solid choice for PC protection, and the impact on your PC resources should be pretty minimal. The price points are okay, but you can find better value elsewhere. The McAfee desktop app needs a little work to make it more intuitive, and to optimize its design.
- See it
McAfee Total Protection offers good PC protection and the pricing is okay, but the desktop program's interface could stand to make a better use of space.
Cons
- Total Protection's rotating carousel takes up too much room in the UI
- Multiple windows for nearly all actions is excessive
I reviewed a dozen antiviruses for Mac in the past year, and since McAfee is a well-known brand in the cybersecurity space, I spent an entire week testing its flagship product for macOS. Unfortunately, the results were somewhat unexpected and underwhelming.
Overall, the McAfee Total Protection is not good for Mac. The app only detects 90.6% of Mac malware, which is below the industry average. It is hard to install on macOS Big Sur. The CPU usage is very high, sometimes peaks at 50%, which makes working on Mac challenging while the real-time antivirus enabled.
Let’s dive in.
How to install McAfee on Mac
Most antiviruses have similar installation processes. Since they need to have access to the low-level functions of macOS and there is no easy way to provide this access on Mac, the users end up doing some setup functions manually.
Usually, this requires some medium-level experience with Macs (I mean total newbies will most likely having issues), but it’s not rocket science.
However, McAfee managed to overcomplicate the installation process, and you need to be a true expert in order to have the antivirus on your Mac. I don’t know if it’s a deliberate process or the company is focused only on the Windows platform and de-prioritizes Mac users, but it took me several hours to get the product running.
Here are the steps I had to take:
Download McAfee to a PC
Depending on which version of the program you are going to install, you may or may not need this step. If you are purchasing, then skip to the next step. However, if you just want to get a trial version (for 30 days), then prepare for frustration.
There is a page on the website with a link to the trial version, but it’s a Windows app! It will not run on your Mac. I spent a lot of time trying to find a DMG or PKG file that will run on Mac, but I didn’t find any. They kept pushing me a PC version.
So finally, I gave up and downloaded a trial on my PC.
Once I installed McAfee on my PC, I clicked on the Settings (gear) icon. Then click on My Account under the My Info section.
From here, I could choose a platform (Mac) and then either download an installer app or email a link to myself.
It took me a while to figure out. In fact, I remember that this was the main reason why I didn’t test McAfee when I was testing a dozen antiviruses for Mac.
So, what are you supposed to do if you don’t have a PC to install the trial?
Move to the next step, then.
Create an account on the McAfee site
Another way to download the installer app is to create an account on the company site. It’s exactly what you would be doing when you buy the license right away. I guess the company didn’t think (or care) that people would like to get a trial version for Mac and test it before buying.
So, go to the company website, create an account, provide a user name and password.
Log in.
Email the link to the macOS version to yourself
Once you are logged into the site or have a PC version installed, you can email a link to a URL from which you can download a Mac version of the antivirus. You can also email links to another PC, iPhone or Android.
Download the Antivirus for Mac from the site
- Click on the My Account tab in the website menu and then choose Subscriptions.
- Click on the platform picture (Mac), and then click Protect This Mac.
- McAfee-Account.png
- Select McAfee Total Protection product.
- Click the Download button.
- Tick the “I’ve read and accept the McAfee License Agreement.” checkbox – this will reveal a Serial Number you will need to enter later.
- Copy the Serial Number to a text file.
- Click the Download button.
Run the McAfeeMacInstaller app
Find mcafee-macinstaller-NNN.dmg file in the Downloads folder and double click on it.
This will start the installation process.
Enter Serial Number
When asked, enter the Serial Number you saved earlier. Unfortunately, the program does not allow copy/paste, so you have to enter the S/N manually.
Give Access to VShieldScanner & VShieldScanManager
This part is the most complicated.
When the installation app finishes and starts the antivirus Dashboard, it will ask the user to give Full Disk Access to four helper apps:
- VShieldScanner
- VShieldScanManager
- fmpd
- GenUtility
If you have macOS Catalina or earlier, it is possible that the above-mentioned utilities will already be in the Privacy section in System Preferences. And all you would need is to Full Disk Access and just check to enable them.
But, if you have macOS Big Sur or for whatever reason McAfee fails to include them, you need to use Finder.
McAfee will provide a link with instructions, but the instructions are pretty much useless because they do not explain where the files are located!
After some research, I was able to find them.
Here’s how to enable McAfee in macOS Big Sur:
- Open System Preferences
- Click on Security and Privacy
- Go to the Privacy tab
- Locate the Full Disc Access section on the left
- Click on the padlock in the left bottom corner
- Enter Admin password
- Start Finder app
- Use Shift-Command-G key combination.
- In the “Go to the folder” window, type (or copy/paste) this path:
- Find VShieldScanner and VShieldScanManager files
- Drag both files into the Full Disk Access list
Give Full Disk Access to fmpd & GenUtility apps
Two other files are hidden under /usr/local/McAfee/AntiMalware/fmp/bin folder. Locate fmpd and GenUtility files in the bin folder and drag them to the Full Disk Access list.
Check this video for step by step instructions:
Close System Preferences
Click on the padlock again and close System Preferences.
How to know if McAfee was properly installed on Mac
If any of the helper apps: VShieldScanner, VShieldScanManager, fmpd or GenUtility was not properly added to the Full Disk Access pane in System Preferences, McAfee antivirus will not be able to detect and remove/quarantine malware.
Instead, it will show the “We need access to fully protect you” message in the Total Protection dashboard.
How to use McAfee Total Protection on my Mac
McAfee Total Protection has two main functions: Full Scan and Custom Scan. The full scan will check for viruses on all Mac disks. Use Custom Scan to check for malware in a specific folder or external device. Enable Real-time Scanning to prevent malware from getting into Mac from external devices.
Enable Scheduled Scans to check the computer periodically.
Real-time Scanning
The real-time feature in McAfee Total Protection is pretty good.
I have an encrypted zip file where I store all malware samples for Apple (for testing purposes). I copied the file to my MacBook Pro and tried to unzip it. While the files were extracted, McAfee quickly picked up that I was messing with harmful files and quarantined them on the fly.
Custom Scan
While real-time monitoring is good, I wanted to test a custom folder. So, I disabled the real-time feature and unpacked the files again.
In the Dashboard, I clicked on the Custom Scan button. Then clicked on the “plus” icon and selected the folder location.
The custom scan was very quick, and here are the results.
I had 117 malware samples.
McAfee was able to detect and quarantine all but 11 samples. It missed Cowhand, CreativeUpdater, CrossRat, Flasfa, GMERA, HellRaiser, InstallCap, MineSteal, OSX.Dummy, OpinionSpy, and Siggen viruses.
So the detection rate for my collection was 90.6%.
Is it good or bad?
I expect any AV to be able to detect 95% of more threats. For comparison, Norton and Trend Micro have 100% detection rates.
Or you can go either with Malwarebytes or Avast if you are looking for a good free antivirus.
Full Scan
Now, the not-so-good stuff.
Among other things, I like to run full scans to see how long it takes for an AV to check the entire storage. The time varies for different antimalware products.
I started the full scan at 9:01 am.
At 12:24 pm, it already checked 669,849 files and kept going.
I had no clue how long the entire process would take, but I said it was ok to myself. I understand that McAfee did not want to impact my work and was running the scan slow, so I could keep working without interruption. To avoid any delays, I decided not to touch the MacBook until the work is done.
However, at 8:30 pm, my MacBook crashed! The Total Protection caused a panic attack.
Not good.
CPU Usage with McAfee on Mac
One of the most important questions that everyone asks is how the AV will impact the CPU. After all, the protection provided by the antimalware product is not worth it if it doesn’t let you do your work.
Unfortunately, McAfee was pretty bad when I was browsing the internet. The CPU was so high that my MacBook overheated, and it was constantly running the fan.
One more strike against the app.
Do you need McAfee Firewall?
Another feature is the firewall. Basically, firewalls block incoming connections from other computers to your Mac. You can also configure to restrict connections from your computer outside, but it doesn’t make sense for home devices.
However, the firewall is not needed for your home computer because your home Wi-Fi router is most likely has a firewall already.
So, if you ask me, I wouldn’t suggest enabling this feature.
What Others Say About McAfee Total Protection
When evaluating security applications, I check a couple of websites for information: AV-Test and AV-Comparatives.
Both evaluated McAfee very high, but only for the Windows platform!
The last time AV-Comparatives tested the Mac version in 2016, and AV-Test never tested it for macOS.
And this takes us to a question that needs an answer…
Is McAfee worth it for Mac
While McAfee Total Protection is an excellent antivirus for PCs, as suggested by AV-Test lab, it falls short on Mac.
The McAfee malware detection is 90.6% which is below the 100% achieved by the best Mac antiviruses. The difficulty of the installation, high CPU usage while browsing the internet, and crashes during full scans make McAfee Total Protection not worth having on Macs.
McAfee for Mac alternatives
I tested over a dozen of products. And while McAfee was better than some, there were many AVs with much better performance. When choosing between McAfee or Norton, I will go to Norton in a heartbeat. Or VIPRE.
Does Apple recommend McAfee?
Officially, Apple does not recommend any antiviruses, including McAfee. However, on several occasions when I worked with Apple tech support, they consistently suggested installing Malwarebytes.
How to Uninstall McAfee on Mac
The last area where McAfee for Mac failed my expectations is uninstalling process. If you check the article on their site called “How to install, configure, uninstall McAfee software on macOS,” you will find information about installing and configuring for various macOS versions from Sierra to Big Sur.
The one thing that was missing is uninstalling process.
I guess they don’t think you may want to replace this product with a competitor.
There is one post on the internet written seven years ago, which explains how to do it manually by going to various hidden libraries and running complicated scripts in the Terminal.
Mcafee Free Virus Scan For Mac
Fortunately, the company had built a tool for removing its products.
Here’s the process:
- Hold Command key and hit Space to bring up Spotlight Search
- Type “McAfee Total Protection Uninstaller.app”
- Click on the app in the drop-down list
- Click on the Continue button
- Enter Admin password
If you can’t find the tool, there is another solution – use the CleanMyMac trial version.
Here’s how to uninstall McAfee for Mac with CleanMyMac:
- Go to MacPaw.com
- Download the latest version of CleanMyMac
- Double click on CleanMyMacX.dmg
- Move CleanMyMac X.app to Applications folder
- Start CleanMyMac app
- Click on the Open button to allow it to run
- Go to Uninstaller section under Applications section
- Click on View All Applications
- Select all McAfee apps in the list
- Click Uninstall button
Troubleshooting
Mcafee Endpoint Security For Mac Free
How to exclude a file from McAfee on Mac
Here’s what to do:
- Open McAfee Total Protection Dashboard
- Click on Real-Time Scanning
- Click on Excluded Files tab
- Click on the padlock icon in the bottom left corner
- Enter Admin password to make changes
- Click on the plus icon next to Add label
- Browse to the file to exclude
- Click on the padlock again
- Close the Real-Time Scanning window
Mcafee Antivirus Mac Download
Why is McAfee saying my Mac is at risk?
Mcafee Total Protection For Mac Free Download
Like most commercial antimalware products, McAfee Total Protection displays your Mac is at risk message when the real-time scan or firewall is not enabled. The message does not mean that there was any malware found. Once the real-time scan feature is enabled, the message will go away.
Takeaway
Overall, I was disappointed by the product. My guess is that the company focus is primarily on PCs and the Mac version is there mainly for users who have multiple devices at home.
Mcafee Download Reinstall
If you are on the hunt for a good AV for your Mac, then check my review of other antimalware products.
Comments are closed.