Product Description

Protect yourself, your computer, your identity and your family with McAfee Total Protection 2009. With the daily emergence of new and more sophisticated Internet threats that could disrupt your digital life, you need more than a simple anti-virus program. You need McAfee Total Protection 2009 - all-you-need, feature-rich, and simple-to-use security software.

Anti-phishing Alerts you to web sites that may try to steal your identity Identity Protection 2-way Firewall Protection SiteAdvisor Warns about unsafe web sites SecurityCenter A security status screen with fully customizable options SystemGuards Warns when your computer shows specific behaviors that may signal virus, spyware, or hacker activity Stealth Mode Makes your computer invisible to intruders online Shredder Removes any trace of confidential files from your computer Parental Controls Data Backup Protection without Interference Watch movies or play games uninterrupted as McAfee security service intelligently defers tasks, updates, and alerts when you're in full-screen mode Minimum System Requirements Microsoft Windows 2000 (32-bit) with Service Pack 4 (SP4) or higher, XP (32-Bit) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher, Vista (32 or 64-bit) 256 MB RAM or higher 800 X 600 or higher resolution 150 MB of available free drive space Internet connection Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later Optional - Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or later For up to 3 users

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #744 in Software
• Brand: McAfee
• Model: MTP09EMB3RAA
• Released on: 2008-09-07
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Subtitled in: German
• Dimensions: 9.29" h x 1.77" w x 7.44" l, .19 pounds

Features

• Enterprise-class Anti-spam--Helps keep your inbox free from unwanted, fraudulent, offensive, and phishing emails
• QuickScan--Checks for threats in the areas of your computer that are most often attacked
• Network Monitoring--Alerts you when intruders connect to your home network
• Age Appropriate Searching--Sets the proper content filtering levels of search engines
• Anti-virus/Anti-spyware--Detects, blocks, and removes viruses, spyware, and adware

Amazon.com
With the daily emergence of new and more sophisticated Internet threats that could disrupt your digital life, you need more than a simple anti-virus program to protect yourself, your computer, your identity and your family. You need McAfee Total Protection 2009--all-you-need, feature-rich, and simple-to-use security software.

Ultimate, Easy-to-Use PC and Online Protection with Powerful Web Site Safety Advisor

When using popular search engines, McAfee SiteAdvisor's safety ratings appear next to your search results. To see more information about the web site, roll your mouse over any SiteAdvisor safety rating. Click to enlarge.

Easy-to-use, intuitive "security console." Click to enlarge.

Stay safe with instant message and email link checking. Click to enlarge.

New Product Features for 2009

New--Simplified Set-up
Installation is now easier and faster with improved detection and removal of malware that tries to halt the set-up

New--Enterprise-class Anti-spam
Powerful industry-grade spam protection helps keep your inbox free from unwanted, fraudulent, offensive, and phishing emails.

New--QuickScan
Checks for threats in the areas of your computer that are most often attacked

New--Network Monitoring
Alerts you when intruders connect to your home network

New--Age Appropriate Searching
Automatically sets the proper content filtering levels of popular search engines

New--Friendly Alerts
Provides you with easy to understand alerts regarding your protection

Key Product Highlights

Anti-virus/Anti-spyware
Detects, blocks, and removes viruses, spyware, and adware

Anti-phishing
Alerts you to web sites that may try to steal your identity

Identity Protection
Helps you to shop, bank, and trade online safely

Two-way Firewall Protection
Confidently use the Internet 24/7 knowing hackers can't get access to your PCs

Web Site Safety Advisor
A powerful web site guide and shield, McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus technology helps you to safely search and transact online by providing you with color-coded ratings to warn you about and actually prevent you from visiting risky web sites that can compromise your identity and your PC

Other Product Features

McAfee SecurityCenter
Provides an easy-to-read security status screen and puts you in control with fully customizable options

McAfee SystemGuards
Warns you when your computer shows specific behaviors that may signal virus, spyware, or hacker activity

Stealth Mode
Makes your computer invisible to intruders from the Internet

Shredder
Allows you to effectively remove any and all traces of confidential files from your computer

Parental Controls
Allows your children to go online safely

Data Backup
Automatically saves copies of your most valuable files on a CD/DVD, USB, external, or network drive

Protection without Interference
You can watch movies or play games uninterrupted as McAfee security service intelligently defers tasks, updates, and alerts when you're in full-screen mode

The McAfee Advantage
McAfee's security products use award-winning technology, are easy to install, and come with unlimited email and chat assistance. With continuous and automatic updates, McAfee helps ensure that you are always running the most current security to combat the ever-evolving threats on the Internet for the duration of your subscription.

Customer Reviews

Partially effective "nagware" that does not properly remove Spyware
When computer users were searching for a term to apply to computer programs that came loaded with viruses, harmful DRM (Digital Rights Management) or other insidious ways of slowing down the user's computer, they eventually settled on "Malware."

Its time to coin a new term for programs like McAfee Total Protection. My complaints against the program are only partially related to its ability to filter out viruses and keep a computer free of junk.

The real issue with this program, and many, many others is that it will constantly steal the users focus by popping up text boxes from the Taskbar in Windows. These can come at ANY time the computer is on. They alert the user to the fact that "McAfee has installed updates," or "It is time to restart the computer" to the neverendingly frustrating "Your subscription is about to expire." These boxes can and will pop up while immersed in a full screen computer game, at times causing it to crash. They will pop up when you are working on editing digital photos, or watching a movie, or anything else that requires your full attention.

The term "nagware," came to mind, and maybe it will stick. Feel free to put your suggestions in the comments section of this review.

I understand why they do this. It is intended for novice computer owners who need to be reminded of all of these things, and who don't consider having their 'focus' (the primary task the computer user is working on. For example, as I write this review, it is my primary focus) stolen as EXTREMELY frustrating. That wouldn't even be a big deal, except that McAfee in their infinite wisdom has provided no remedy for the power user. We cannot turn off these irritating messages. They come regardless of my desire to see them or not.

They are amazingly irritating, especially if they disrupt something immersive, like a computer game or movie. Imagine: you are watching your new blue-ray of "The Dark Knight," and just as Batman is about to dispense with the Joker, a text box pops up with the message "McAfee has finished installing updates" in a gray box in the corner of the screen. Unacceptable in the first place, and even more so because you CANNOT TURN THIS FEATURE OFF! This gets unbearable when your subscription is a few months from expiring, and alerts informing you of that pop up literally every time you use the computer. Also, they don't just leave after they pop up, the user is required to click 'ok.' You cannot permanently disable these messages.

As a virus scanner, McAfee works relatively well. It will scan your system for viruses, and if your definitions are up-to-date, find them some of the time. However, it is pretty strange that after making virus software for so many years, they still cannot provide a reasonably well working Spyware hunter that is anywhere near as good as the free version of "Ad-Aware" offered by Lavasoft, or the retail version of "Spybot Search and Destroy."

Another major complaint is the sheer size of the system resource footprint that McAfee total protection takes up. If you have an older computer, less than 2gb of ram (4gb with Vista), this program will create a very noticeable slowdown in your computer's performance. Comparing to how it runs on my wife's laptop with 4gb of ram vs. some of the computers at my work with only 1.5gb, the older work computers are drastically slowed down by McAfee, while my wife's laptop with its 4gb of ram is not really affected. (I do not use this program on my computer for the reasons that I've laid out above).

In concussion, if you don't care about 1. Annoying pop ups that steal your focus and cannot be disabled, 2. Very limited spyware removal and 3. Slow and poorly written code that uses a large portion of system resources, you MIGHT consider buying this software.

*****UPDATE 09-15-2009*****

Still have this program installed on my wife's laptop, and it's still popping up annoying and useless advertisements despite the fact that I've turned off all notifications in the options tab--you can see the most recent one that I took a screen shot of in the 'customer images' section of this Amazon page. When the license runs out in a few months I will be uninstalling this program and replacing it with AVAST home edition which is free. I can't recommend this program to anyone. Save yourself the money and get a free alternative like AVAST or AVG.

Issues with McAfee
I had McAfee before and bought this for renewal.Few issues that I have noted so far are
1.It keeps popping up a message asking to activate and even though I try to activate it does not activate.
2.Recently there was a trojan attack on my computer and McAfee did not even detect the virus leave alone repairing it. I downloaded tools from McAfee and that too was not of any help.Then I downloaded MalwareBytes and that rectified the issue.

Help I'm Trapped! Watch Out You Don't Get Trapped
I have no complaints about the operation of this product on a Windows Vista system, but somehow (in my opinion in a sneaky manner) without my awareness, the "Auto-renewal" feature was set up that automatically updates at the end of the year and directly charges your credit card!

To stop this "feature", they give you three options, but none are easy. Using phone call costs you. The chat client doesn't download, and the email means you have to wait 48 hours for a reply.

I am disappointed. Be careful you don't get caught in this trap. Otherwise, is OK product as far as I can tell.