by Stephan Kubrik
digitalwelt Lead Columnist for IT Security
Every year, the quality of antivirus programs in the market changes. McAfee was once the top antivirus brand alongside Norton Security. As of 2024 McAfee is still one of the best Antivirus tools on the market. Even though there is much competition, McAfee is able to provide a high-quality antivirus protection and customer support as of 2024. Check out the ratings and reviews then ask yourself if it’s worth the money.
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McAfee is already installed as a trial version on most of the PC’s out there. Usually after 3 months, a fee-based registration becomes necessary. This has several advantages and reasons for choosing McAfee. On one hand, the PC is secured free of charge against viruses. But is that enough time for users to test the virus scanner? All tests show that McAfee is still one of the strongest and safest antivirus security software on the market. We thoroughly tested the antivirus software in November 2024 .
Product Overview:
- McAfee Total Protection 2024
- McAfee Internet Security 2024
- McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2024
Operating Systems:
- Mac
- Windows 10
- Windows 8
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 7
- Android
- Mac OS X
McAfee Internet Security Customer Support
4 out of 5
Horrible customer support‘ is a statement you will find often when reading customer’s reactions to McAfee in 2023. Fortunately due to lots of restructuring, that’s one thing McAfee was able to solve in 2024. Back in the days, before McAfee went through a company restructuring, when users had issues with McAfee, it wasn’t unusual for the support to ask you to call the Microsoft or Apple support instead — basically trying to avoid the problem.
That has changed significantly in 2024 since McAfee improved their support.
In 2023 — a year before McAfee had increasingly improved their support issues, Digitalwelt didn’t want to rely on hearsay, and contacted McAfee. Back then, McAfee support would not respond to any of our emails. It seems that in a year ago in 2023 there was no real support when it came to McAfee — and users would be on their own for the most part. Some users from 2015-2023 also reported that they wanted their money back, but since McAfee’s support wasn’t responding, they couldn’t get anybody responsible on the line that could actually pay their money back.
Back in 2023 we urged users to not buy McAfee Internet Security 2023 from the McAfee’s corporate website, but to go to Amazon.com instead. Since Amazon has fabulous customer support, you would have no issues at all if anything goes wrong and you want your money back.
But that all changed in 2024 and McAfee’s fabulous support is back. However McAfee is still experiencing bad reviews from the time they had issues. That’s why lots of reviews you will find in the internet refer to the old habits of McAfee. Be aware that these reviews do not reflect the support of 2024 and most likely the years to come.
McAfee deserves a second chance in 2024.
If you can get McAfee to install correctly and don’t have to touch base with McAfee customer support, McAfee is still a good product and provides average antivirus protection. In this case, continue reading. It is one of the most reliable antivirus protections you can get For alternatives however, you might want to check our reviews of the Avast Pro Antivirus 2024, and Avira Antivirus Pro 2024.
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McAfee Internet Security Virus Coverage
5 out of 5
An important feature that sophisticated antivirus software should possess is the ability to detect viruses and malware even without having them in their virus detection library. New viruses are constantly coming into the market that aren’t necessarily detected by antivirus software. An intelligent virus detection program ensures that it also detects suspicious processes on the computer which try to sneak into sensitive areas. One of the best-known tests in this area is the so-called EICAR virus test (European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research) by the Belgian scientist Eddy Willems. The virus test is so demanding that most antivirus programs fail. In addition, there are always cases that event highly developed and renowned antivirus software pass or fail depending on the year the test is done.
In the meantime many sources report that McAfee is able to stop many of the trojans that are around. All we can say for the Version 2024 is that McAfee seems to have solved many of their internal organizational issues they had in the past and were able to provide oe of the the best virus protections as of 2024. We hope that that McAfee will also be able to continue this good work in 2025. Without hesitation, we can recommend McAfee as your standard antivirus provider in 2024 when it comes to virus protection.
McAfee Internet Security User Ratings
4 out of 5
We evaluated reviews from forums and review portals thanks to Social Listening Tools and made the results available to you. While McAfee is slightly less known than Norton Security and has fewer reviews, some are positive, some are negative. At Amazon, the software scores 4.0 stars, which is good but not great. Unfortunately, as already discussed, this resembles past reviews which are not accurate anymore.
In addition, in forums, blogs and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, reviews before 2024 are also mostly negative, everything after 2024 is extremely positive. Let’s stick to some of the reviews you will find over and over:
“Additional portfolio, and great protection”
In addition to the mediocre protection against viruses, McAfee has an additional feature for protection. This feature, which is part of the McAfee Total Protection 2024 product, tries to protect data on devices from unauthorized access. This is how it works: You can create up to 5 users on the PC, each with password only access their own data. This allows multiple members to access the PC where everyone can save their own individual data. Other add-on features that McAfee offers are functionalities such as remote access to smartphones in case the phone is lost or stolen. With just a few clicks, the user can access the smartphone from their PC, delete data, lock the SIM card or just call the phone.
It seems that McAfee has not only made up for their lack of customer support 2023 and before, but are now providing additional innovative features.
“Visually pleasing and clear”
Comparing McAfee Total Protection 2024 and McAfee Antivirus Plus 2024 with other antivirus software on the market, menu management and usability is actually still great. In recent years many other antivirus programs often produced cryptic messages on the computer screen. Computer experts and technology enthusiasts may be familiar with very complex messages. However, the average consumer does not always have the understanding or even the time to deal with such messages. Comparing competitors, McAfee puts emphasis on simplicity and friendly user guidance with their 2024 version of the antivirus program. Also, the quick and easy installation and subsequent fast registration is praised in many forums and blogs.
Software Performance of McAfee Internet Security
5 out of 5
We measured McAfee’s performance against several competitors. First, the scanning speed. We analyzed how long the virus check takes and if it slows down your computer. Especially with regular system checks for viruses that run in the background, you don’t want antivirus software that slows down your computer. McAfee knows this has been an issue in the past. Testing all three products: McAfee Total Protection 2024, McAfee Internet Security 2024, and McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2024, they did not slow down the computer.
We tested McAfee by running different programs at the same time to test the PC’s usage. In our test we used a Dell laptop with Intel i5 processor with 4 GB of memory and a hard disk with 7200 RPM (revolutions per minute). The following software ran in the background with McAfee: Adobe Photoshop 2024, Microsoft Office with Powerpoint and Word as of the latest updates on November 2024, an HD video with VLC player, as well as several Chrome browser windows with numerous tabs. All products went unnoticed in the background and did not slow down work on the PC. Even regular virus updates ran unnoticed in the background.
Another feature of McAfee antivirus software products is the intuitive menu navigation and interface, which has received multiple awards from the community. There was no concern or flaw in the McAfee test that was relevant to mention at this point.
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McAfee Internet Security Value for Money
5 out of 5
With the current offering, McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2024 is one of the less expensive antivirus programs in the market. They are many companies that manage to offer antivirus software to cheaper prices, but fail to provide this kind of high performance in customer support like McAfee does. In this price range McAfee is not only a great antivirus software, but you will also get useful additional products from McAfee. McAfee offers a unique feature with the McAfee AntiVirus Plus: The license to allow installation on any number of devices — if you’re willing to pay more.
So far, this is the fairest price we’ve seen compared to renowned antivirus competitors and therefore are surprised. We recommend looking at the reviews of other antivirus providers as well, which provide same coverage and different price/performance ratios.
For only $34.99, McAfee Internet Security 2024 offers a host of useful features in addition to sophisticated antivirus protections. These features include parental controls and identity management, which can also be installed on countless devices.
McAfee Total Protection 2024 has one of the best price/performance ratio so far — there is a limit to the number of devices for $34.99. In this new version McAfee 2024, the file encryption is added as an additional feature. This allows users to protect their data from unauthorized access. Incidentally, this version is also recommended by columnists because several components of high-quality functionalities can be booked for just a few dollars more.
Overall, McAfee leaves it to the user which additional features to use. In the end it should be about the basic antivirus software protection for $34.99.
McAfee Internet Security Overall Rating
4.4 out of 5
McAfee has been developing antivirus software since 1987. The company has undergone many restructurings, but it seems that these are still ongoing. Some of them have lowered the software quality negatively, since 2024 the company is back in track.
The company has undergone several changes over the years. These changes have taken a great toll on the company and the software. The company has completely restructured in 2004 by selling some of their subsidiaries. Intel bought the company in 2010, and the company was restructured again. Then the company announced the name change to “Intel Security”, and then back to McAfee Security. After several internal misunderstandings, the founder John McAfee left the company stating that the McAfee company is a ‘terrible association with the worst software on the planet’, spreading a bad reputation among the users.
In the past, McAfee took the rap: Affiliated websites with wrong information, invalid content and a bad customer support are one of the things that have destroyed the brand’s reputation in the past and makes it hard for McAfee to prove that they are in fact doing much better in 2024.
The multi-billion dollar business is lucrative and extremely successful due to their deals with manufacturers such as HP, which include McAfee as a default install. Past mistakes ruined the confidence for many customers.
McAfee has 30 years of experience, and the restructurings of the company have resulted in something that can be best described as ‘new’ and ‘fresh’. That’s why we can recommend McAfee as of 2024 again with a good conscience and believe that McAfee deserves a second chance.
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by Stephan Kubrik
Stephan Kubrik is a Computer Scientist and expert on VPNs and computer viruses. Stephan has been researching for the Fraunhofer Society and has been developing software for the autonomous discovery of computer viruses and trojans using artificial intelligence.
He was previously a Research Associate at the Technical University of Cologne, studied Computer Engineering, and regularly publishes in IT magazines and journals, including the PC Magazine and digitalwelt.
digitalwelt Lead Columnist for IT Security
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