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Why I HATE McAfee and Norton Antivirus Software |
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Monday, 04 June 2007 |
I just don't get it. Year after year, these companies provide us with the same bloated software and year after year OEM computer makers and uneducated consumers continue to buy the crap. I will go on record again...McAfee Antivirus Software and Norton Antivirus Software is among the WORST things you could do to a computer.
Going into further detail, I'd like to state that it is their consumer-level and home-level software that sucks. Norton's corporate and managed antivirus solutions work well. Reasons why Norton and McAfee both suck at protecting your computer.
1) SLOW - I didn't buy a computer so that I could spend more time typing and printing than I could on a type-writer. These two antivirus giants are notorious for making my computer take forever to start up, take forever to download my email, and also make general computing so much slower. What really bugs me even more is that a free solution like FREE AVG Antivirus from Grisoft can be so much more efficient and secure as Norton and McAfee. For $50 a year, the software better be able to protect me from all viruses and not allow my computer to be infected to the point where I have to spend $150 for a computer technician to get it off. Sadly, this isn't the story for most people.
2) PRICE - I hate paying for things and so does everyone else. For $50, you better have more features and be easier to use than all other alternatives. So far, McAfee and Norton haven't even come close. I'm tired of their cute, but clunky menus and windows. I'm tired of having to click through a ton of different windows to disable features as well as to tell Windows security alerts to leave me alone.
3) BRANDING - I'm tired of Norton and McAfee trying to take over my entire computer with aggressive brand names, logos, and banners over everything in their software. I hate big splash screens at startup, during configuring, and uninstalling. Stop trying to sell me your crap! Thanks to your great brand recognition, I now know who exactly to avoid and what brand logos to avoid.
4) SECURITY - Norton and McAfee themselves are not secure from viruses. I can't count how many client machines I've seen with disabled or corrupted versions of Norton Antivirus or McAfee antivirus failing to protect the end user. If you're making anti-virus software, your program better be bulletproof against viruses...period!
5) DUMB SOFTWARE - Norton and McAfee's software is unable to think for the client. Most of their firewall and spyware solutions are full of crap. There should be a database of the most obvious software and signature to act on behalf of people automatically. Nobody wants porn spyware installed on their computer and Norton and McAfee's software should be able to immediately block it without sending the user an annoying and confusing disable/grant permission window. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software is supposed to be able to think for people. Sending people a pop-up window with a generic company name is not going to help the average user decide what they want to allow or not.
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