McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007

McAfee's Internet Security Suite 2007 is what the vendor calls its "eight products in one" application. Included are antivirus, antispyware, antispam, antiphishing, and firewall protection; PC performance enhancement; and parental controls. There's also a special rootkit-detection scanner known as McAfee X-ray for Windows. But McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 doesn't play well with other security applications you might already have installed, including third-party antispyware apps, and it continues to hog more resources than Norton Internet Security. Our real problem with McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007, however, isn't its security, it's its overall ease of use: despite a major interface redesign, McAfee fails to balance having the right tools with making them accessible. Thus, we recommend ZoneAlarm Internet Security 7 over McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007; the ZoneAlarm package is a much lighter, better balanced security suite.

Setup and installation
We installed McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 directly from the Internet. The updated McAfee Internet Suite sells for AU$99.95, matching Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007 pricing.

McAfee uses the intermediary Download Center, which you must first download to access the final application. McAfee defends this two-step choice saying that it can better update the content on its back end, which is true. However, other vendors download a version of the application first, then query the vendor for any new updates. Either way, you get the latest version, but we prefer to have the application protect us ASAP, then update.

Unfortunately, our copy of McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 stopped installing when it detected another installed security product. Unlike Norton, which allowed us to keep the free copy of ZoneAlarm installed and running, McAfee demanded that ZoneAlarm be uninstalled first. Rather than give us a chance to do so, McAfee automatically rolled back the current install, and we lost about 20 minutes. Once ZoneAlarm was removed, we performed the McAfee installation a second time without a glitch. It would have been nice if McAfee had scanned our machine first and informed us of any known conflicts before it initiated the installation. After our second, successful installation, we rebooted.

The interface for all of McAfee's security products has been simplified and standardised. This is good if you plan to purchase other McAfee offerings. Last year, the McAfee Security Center was a separate window, an annoying feature if you were inside the antivirus part and wanted to access to the firewall part. This year, everything is integrated in one window through a left-hand navigation system. McAfee offers one table of contents for common tasks and another table of contents intended for advanced users. We think one table of contents would have worked better, with an option to drill down within a topic for more advanced users.

Should you want to remove McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007, you'll find there is no uninstall icon within Windows XP All Programs, so you'll have to use Windows Control Panel's "Add and remove programs." Even after selecting the McAfee suite for install, you'll still need to check each application you want removed; there are seven in McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007, so don't miss one. After the program's uninstall and reboot process completed, we found only a handful of system registry entries but no leftover files within system folders, which we did encounter with Trend Micro. Of the Internet security suites we reviewed this year, only ZoneAlarm Internet Security offers clean uninstallations.

Features
McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 includes backup-and-recovery and system-maintenance features not found in other security suites we've seen. But there's also superfluous eye candy, such as the Virus Map feature. Yes, there are a lot of features, but not all of them are meaningful or unique to McAfee.

We like the backup-and-recovery system built into McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007; none of the other Internet security suites we've reviewed have offered this. McAfee offers a choice, letting you burn the backup to a disc or save to another drive volume or to a network. We think this feature is a definite plus, as part of security is having a good backup ready in case disaster strikes. And as you configure the system for scheduled antivirus scans, you can configure it to perform scheduled backups, as well.

The Maintain Computer feature is another good idea that could stand to have more McAfee-specific tools in the future. McAfee QuickClean clears cookies and junk from your Internet browsers and removes deleted applications from the system registry. It is no longer available as a stand-alone application and finds a new home here. However, the other two items on the computer maintenance page are Windows utilities that are already available within Windows XP, Disk Defragmenter and Task Scheduler, both of which you can run for free from the Start menu in Windows. On a separate page, under Advanced, is the McAfee Shredder, a valuable security feature for writing over deleted files with 1s and 0s to ensure that no one can read what you've deleted. Here, too, there are free options are available, including Eraser, but it's nice to see the feature included within the suite. In the future, we'd like to see the Maintain Computer feature dispense with the Windows apps and combine the McAfee-specific QuickClean and Shredder on one page.

The traffic monitor, a visual interpretation of your firewall activity, is valuable, as are the virus information library and HackerWatch, McAfee's site that logs recent Internet attacks. However, some of the other features are of questionable security value. The Virus Map is superfluous. It's a real-time map showing where virus outbreaks are occurring, according to McAfee. And McAfee Visual Tracer is a Traceroute-like application with a map of the world so that you can see who it is that's attacking you (although the end point isn't necessarily the origin of the attack, just the last hop that's traceable through McAfee's servers).

Operating behind the scenes are some useful new tools: McAfee SystemGuards and McAfee X-ray for Windows. McAfee SystemGuards are behavioural monitors that check for unusual system activity and enlist the appropriate protection when necessary. McAfee X-ray for Windows detects and removes rootkits, malicious code that hides deep within the Windows system kernel. McAfee's current approach to both the behavioural analysis and rootkit prevention is conventional, and perhaps future releases of McAfee Internet Security will include more advanced enterprise technology from Citadel, a recent McAfee acquisition.

Speaking of acquisitions, we like McAfee SiteAdvisor, a superior antiphishing tool McAfee acquired last year. SiteAdvisor plugs into both the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. In informal testing, SiteAdvisor was more aggressive than the native antiphishing tools within Firefox and Internet Explorer. For our tests, we looked at five recently identified phishing sites posted on DSLReports.com/phishtrack; Firefox and Internet Explorer both identified four of the five as suspicious, but SiteAdivsor identified all five, as did our control application, the stand-alone Netcraft toolbar. McAfee SiteAdvisor is available as a stand-alone application either for free or with additional features for a fee.

McAfee's Parental Controls feature includes new methods of discerning and blocking offensive images from e-mails. Despite the name, even households without children may have use for this feature. Norton makes its parental controls optional, via download, but ZoneAlarm includes them within its suite.

Despite the increasing popularity of wireless networks in the home, none of the Internet security suites we've reviewed this year has included the ability to configure WEP or WPA protection on common household wireless routers. McAfee comes the closest, however, selling a stand-alone McAfee Wireless Protection app. We see little point in this product selling on its own, although it is included the much more complete McAfee Total Protection package. It belongs within the Internet suite.

Performance
McAfee VirusScan improves its scores on our CNET Labs' performance tests over those of last year in all cases, except in our boot-time test. On our iTunes test, VirusScan Plus gained ground compared with last year, taking 196 seconds as opposed to 243 seconds last year. On our Sorensen Squeeze test, VirusScan Plus also improved, taking 329 seconds compared to 337 seconds last year. McAfee showed the most improvement with individual file scans, taking only 116 seconds this year as opposed to 368 seconds last year. But in terms of boot speed, McAfee lost the most ground, taking 88 seconds -- the most of any antivirus product we tested; it took 62 seconds last year.

To determine how well a product will protect your PC, we refer to test results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, McAfee VirusScan 2006 earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating, catching 92 percent of all malware tested, and from Checkvir.com, McAfee VirusScan 2006 was one of eight products to earn its Standard (highest) rating.

Check back to read about CNET Labs' tests of the McAfee firewall and antispyware protection in the coming weeks.

Suppport
Like Symantec, McAfee put its resources into improving its technical support. Unlike Norton Internet Security 2007, McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 doesn't offer any downloadable manuals. And unlike both Trend Micro and ZoneAlarm, McAfee doesn't include a tutorial. What McAfee does provide is a contextual knowledge base, asking you a series of questions. Should the knowledge base fail to answer your question, you're taken to another window where a remote scan will attempt to diagnose what is wrong. If none of these solutions work, you're given more options, including online chat, user forums and e-mail.

Despite the interface redesign, McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 feels like a grab bag of security and system performance tools. By refocusing its product line on antivirus plus firewall, Internet security and total protection, McAfee is on the right path, but McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 feels heavy, resourcewise, without having any new technologies added. The code for next year should be leaner, should run with fewer processes across all computers, and should include some advanced rootkit and behavioural monitors, such as those found in Norton Internet Security 2007. And McAfee needs to simplify its interface even more next year, dispensing with the two tables of content and submerging the eye candy in favour of the tools that are most useful. In our opinion ZoneAlarm Internet Security 7 remains the only Internet security suite that strikes the right balance between overall ease of use and the right tools for today's threats.

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