Mcafee was noun for a long time , personally I've used mcafee since 96 and I like it and I considered it one of the best total protection solutions, from version 4 until the last version 2007 , nearly I've tried all versions, there was a famous issue with mcafee in 90s , it was the protection on account consuming memory and process time which make it heavy specially on PIII and older pcs because of the antivirus engine (how to search and and destroy) .
I'll give you a preview of mcafee total protection 2007 and my opinion & impression.
Installing McAfee Total Protection
-After you purchase the product you have to login and download the setup file
-If a page appear for you like the figure below and you already connected to the internet, to skip hit "Return to the previews page "
-when you click "Cutomize" you can choose which component to install , if you want full installation click download .one of the setup's features is that it's support resume , so if you have a dialup connection don't panic :)
-after that it will ask you if you want to install "Site Advisor", then it will do a virus scan before proceed to the setup, finally the setup will begin, and at the end it will ask you about shortcuts etc…..
-finally the setup will start Mcafee services
-Immediately the firewall will give a warning about
The current local connections , ofcourse you have to
Trust local connections otherwise you can't
Communicate with them.
-then I check if there's an updates
-total time for setup is 1 h : 3 min with 45kb/s download speed.
-As you can see , the setup doesn't require restart which is a good thing
mcafee Security Center
have alook below , the panel completely changed from previews versions, friendly But response a bit slowly , if you click advanced menu you will get more options.
If you want to see the product version and which components is installed click View details in the panel above
Usage
1-)Site Advisor :
Site Advisor is a new great feature to mcafee total protection , his job is to warn you if the site is save for browsing or not , the green color indicates it's save
the yellow indicate it's not save, beside that it has report feature telling you varios information
about the site which is I found good thing also you can put a comments in the report page.
As you can see there's not much options in site advisor's settings.
Below you can find a lot of information about the site you are browsing and user's comments
2-)Mcafee Security Center :
There are four categories :
1-protection status:
Here you can select which problems that you are not interested on them and don't want to get warned about them
Here you can choose which informational alerts you want it to appear to you , I.e. granting application access to the internet will cause an informational alert appear to you
2-automatic updates:
Update options like how and when to download and install updates
3-Alert options:
Alert options , sounds etc….
4- Users :
-users :You can use this panel to create and manage Mcafee user accounts.
In Add User dialog you can specify the account type (limited / administrator) and whether it's startup user or not .
if you select startup user option no matter which account you are using to log on to windows , the restriction of startup user (blocked sites, no advanced settings can be configured , limited time to serve on the net and other restrictions ..) will be applied to your account even if you are logged on as windows administrator.
That's mean mcafee create separate user accounts other than windows user accounts (you can't find them in computer management they're in Mcafee panel only )
Whenever you want to switch back to other mcafee accounts (i.e. from limited user account to administrator account ) right click mcafee icon "M" in notification window (right below beside the clock) and select switch user
- Parent Controls :Here you can specify account restrictions, like when the user is allowed to serve the net (Time and dates) and which site is allowed to browsing which I consider a good feature
3-)Computer and files :
There are four categories :
1- Virus protection:
Here you can configure how the real-time scanning or "automatic scanning" scan your files , if you feel that your pc somehow became slow select "program files and documents only" to free up some processor time
In Manual scan you can choose the default options for manual scan , same options as real-time scanning
At scheduled scan there's no special configuration, despite that you can't configure how the schedule scan will scan the files and how to react (I mean what drive to scan ,what file types …., And if a virus found what's the reaction "delete" or " quarantine" or "clean" all these options aren't available here)
2-spyware protection :
No advanced configurations, Just a switch to turn it Off or On
3-systemGaurd protection :
SystemGaurd has been refined and tuned and I really like it, it detect and changes to your browser settings , programs settings , general windows settings and notify you by a small dialog box at right side with "disallow" or "allow" these changes.If these warning annoying you simply select which category the warning came from and select "Disable"
- Trusted lists :Trusted lists is related to SystemGaurd , here you can specify which applications , services , DLLs, ActiveX,…, To trust them (allow them to run) or block them or Remove them.
4-Script scanning protection :
No advanced configurations, Just a switch to turn it Off or On
4-) Internet & firewall :
1-phishing protection :
Phishing is the act of sending an email to a recipient or direct him to a web page claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the recipient to steal sensitive information , like credit card numbers , phone number.
The options here protect your privacy and prevent of sending your sensitive information except to "white list" sites
2- firewall protection :
There are six categories under firewall protection:
- Security level :
Here you can configure firewall sensitivity, smart recommendations which is a good new feature that remove ambiguous warning messages about applications trying to communicate.
The last two options related startup connectivity behavior
- Program permissions :
Here you can control which programs have a permission to connect to the internet, you can see the application path and you can control which direction the communication should occur (inbound/outbound), and you can select the learn more mode which is let Mcafee examine the application and determine the appropriate permissions for the applications
- Trusted and banned IPs :
here you can add ip addresses to allow them or disallow them to communicate with your pc
- System Services :If you have a public services that you want internet user to use it (IIS , FTP, SMTP, ..) you should configure the firewall here to allow the service to communicate with outside users "internet users"
- Event log settings :Log events considered very important specially to network administrator in tracing the communication that occur in your pc , you can choose to log events related to banned ip addresses or specific ports, intrusion detection
- Intrusion detection :Here you can select the attack that you want to be detected, select all of them , although Mcafee put all possible attack it didn't put t button to configure the attack's detection parameters for advanced users .
3-Web browsing protection:
Ad, Pop-Up & Web Bug blocking ,Mcafee put a separate dialog for pop ups with few options, you can't even configure which website is allowed to use popup, some times I need a pop up window !
4-Personal information protection :
Mcafee develop a way to prevent sending personal information over the internet you can choose which information that you consider very important and you don't want to be sent over the Net.
Password vault is look like a password repository , if you have a very important password and don't want any one to know it you can save it here.
5-Wireless Protection :
There's no advance options, only a switch to turn it On or Off.
Maybe cause I don't have a wireless connection
5-)Email and IM protection :
There are three categories
1-spam protection:
- Filtering options :
Here you can choose the level of filtering and additional options like scan hidden text and the size of scanned messages
- Processing :Here you can configure the spam filter's behavior , whether leave the message in inbox or move it to SpamKiller Folder
- Character Sets :
Select specific character Sets "Languages" for message filter , if you select US-ASCII only English messages will be scanned , select languages based in your message's languages you receive.
- Reporting to Mcafee :Here you can find options related to send reports related to spam messages, be aware of the last option if you enable it the whole message will be sent to mcafee
- Personal Filters :
If you didn't like the default filter you can create a personal filters .
One advanced feature which's "RegEx" , it's a powerful expression object in programming language used here to find matches in message body or header or what ever you like (specially used in VB).
- Friends :If you want to make an exception in spam filter use this panel , here you can specify your e-mail's friends to bypass the spam filter, you can choose entire domain (i.e. @yahoo.com , @msn ,…) or single email
- Address Book :
Mcafee can import your Address book from variety e-mail application , mcafee then add all e-mail addresses in address book to friends list , you can even schedule the import action.
- Web Mail Accounts :Here you can specify your web email addresses to let spamkiller to filter your messages and remove any spam, you can configure spamkiller to automatically connect to thw internet and scan your email periodically .
- Email toolbars :
You can choose in which email applications that you want spamkiller toolbar appear
2- Email Protection :
- Email scanning :
Here you can configure which e-mails to scan (Inbound – Outbound) , and whether to enable wormStopper
- Trusted Lists :
As you can see this list appear in many mcafee's panels , here you can configure which application you use to send , receive your emails
3- Instant messaging protection :No Special or advanced configuration , only a switch to turn it Off or On.
6-) Parent control :
- Blocked web sites :
Here you can configure which website you want to block for all users except the Administrators and members of Adult group .
- Allowed websites :You can add websites here to allow users to access specific websites, if you don't enter any website here all user are allowed to access websites except the sites in "blocked web sites"
- Cookies :
Cookies are informational files related to the sites you visited, stored temporally in your pc. For example to save you from entering your username and password each time you visit specific web site.
Here you can configure which sites are allowed to store cookies in this pc regardless of individual restriction users settings, this is useful if you decide to allow specific website to store cookies in your pc regardless of user settings
- Keywords :here you can see five users categories (young child – child – younger teenager – older teenager – adult ).You can specify which group of users can view the content that contain keywords, for example, pages contain porn word can only viewed by adult group users
- Image Analysis :Turn On or Off the image analysis ,which prevent unwanted images to be viewed , you can specify which users are effected by this setting.
- Keyword Scanning :By using this setting you can prevent websites that contain harmful keywords contents to be viewed.
7-) Common tasks :- Events :Events are very important to technical and administrators people and are helpful resource to troubleshoot problems .
Here you can view recent events and there details.
You will get detailed categories of events when you click view log, which I consider very helpful thing and new feature .
- Maintain Computer :
There are three tools you can use them to do basic tasks, two of them are built in windows (disk Defragmenter – task schedule ) .
When you run mcafee QuickClean ,you will get a window with a plenty options for cleaning your pc and free up some space in your pc , you can choose which area mcafee quickClean should clean like registry , recycle bin , Temporary files …
- Backup and restore Files :The "Backup and Restore Files" require at least Net Framework version 1.1, So if your system is not updated recently ,you may get a massage like below
This is new tool added to mcafee products, to be honest I try it many times to do a backup but I failed , it's very slow and you can't backup your entire hard drive , you can't move between hard drives dynamically ( you have to go to settings and change it from there), so I consider it miserable
- Lockdown Firewall :
clicking this button cause an immediate blocking to all internet traffic that came or go out to your pc
- Restore Firewall Defaults :
If you change firewall settings frequently and want it to back as it was you can click this button and it will restore the entire firewall settings to the default settings.
- Manage Wireless Networks :
Unfortunately I don't have a wireless network so the wireless settings and options here are disabled
8-) Tools :
- Virus Map :View viruses around the world with colors indicate the level of infections, you can change options like zoom in /out, period, specify an area.
- Shredder :Files deleted by windows (recycle bin , manually deleted by pressing "del" button) could be recovered by some tools because windows doesn't fill the space that's used by the deleted file with new data instead it mark that area with a tag which make it easier to retrieve the deleted files.
-Note :
"Windows didn't fill the used space by the deleted files because the process of filling that space take time."
Files can reside on your computer even after you empty your Recycle Bin. However, when you shred files, your data is permanently deleted and hackers cannot recover it
- Virus information Library :Latest viruses and attacks and the cure for them with details and historical information about them
- System restore :Basically it's windows system restore which is use restore points that is created every scheduled time or when new patches or updates are applied to your pc you can create these system restore point manually to restore your pc to that point.
- Hacker Watch :Let you know which ports are mostly used in hacker attack so that you can monitor these ports or block them if you want.
- Visual Tracer :
Visual tracer let you trace an ip address to get some information about it , like in which country this ip reside and which company is a provider for this ip , there are three views available (map view – Registration View – Network view)
- Traffic monitor :
Let you to view static information regarding connection activities in graphical representation , there are three sections (traffic analysis – traffic usage- active programs) .
Each one of these section provide different information from different prospect .
The annoying thing here is you have to refresh this page manually.
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Mcafee processes :
-mbackmonitor.exe mcafee backup process
-emproxy.exe scan POP3 and SMTP emails and attachments
-hwapi.exe mcafee hacker watch service
-mcnavsc.exe allow mcafee application to communicate through local network in secure way
-mpfsrv.exe mcafee firewall service
-mps.exe provide identity protection and parents control
-mcpromgr.exe manage protection problems for mcafee applications
-mcproxy.exe mcafee proxy service
-mcshield.exe mcafee real time scanner
-redirsvc.exe mcafee redir service
-mcods.exe mcafee scanner , used when you do a manual or scheduled scan
-mcmscsvc.exe manage mcafee users
-msksrver.exe mcafee spam killer, This service filter emails messages in your pc
-mcsysmon.exe mcafee system Guard , monitor unauthorized changes to you pc
-mcupdmgr.exe download and install updates to mcafee applications
-mwlsvc.exe Mcafee Wireless Network security service
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advantages :
-new friendly panel for mcafee interface
-an option for basic panel or advance panel for expert people
-consume less process time and run smoother than the predecessors
-site Advisor is new feature added to mcafee
-support resume setup if you are installing through the internet
-parent's control now has more options and more powerful
-nearly daily updates
-Powerful email protection with a lot of configurations
-a neat firewall protection
-setup doesn't require restart , But some updates require a restart
-system guard has lot of options and categories to protect your pc
-Password vault is new and good place to store your sensitive information
-logging events
Disadvantages :
-backup and restore files load slowly and heavily, beside that it's useless.
-No emergency disk !.
-Ad pop-up blocker can't be configured to make an exception for certain sites.
-in my computer when try to do a scan by right click the drive and select scan , the item in the menu appear with only "scan" name which is some how confusing me.
-internet explorer load a bit slowly.
-Schedule scan cannot be configured (you can schedule scan with time and date but you can't specify how the scan will work).
-traffic monitor panel can only be refreshed manually.
I hope that I cover every aspect of " McAfee Total Protection 2007", and I hope you find here a useful information.
Don't hesitate to put a comment , write your opinion , advice , or whatever you think about this topic.
Thanks for reading
