McAfee Total Protection 2013

By Neil J. Rubenking

Most security vendors organize their core products in three tiers. At the bottom is the simple, standalone antivirus. Next up is a security suite that typically adds firewall protection, spam filtering, parental control, and more. The top tier is a mega-suite that includes advanced features like online backup, PC tuneup, or encryption. McAfee Total Protection 2013 doesn't quite fit this mold. McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013 includes many typical suite features, and the mid-range McAfee Internet Security 2013 covers most features found in a top tier suite.

So what do you get in McAfee Total Protection that's not in the other products? An upgrade to SiteAdvisor Live from basic SiteAdvisor give you more control over McAfee's Web reputation system. Network management also gets a boost, with the ability to block intruders from the network. The File Lock feature provides secure storage for sensitive files. And you can now securely share links on social media with URL shortening as a bonus.

Your $89.99 per year subscription gets you licenses to install on three PCs. As with the other McAfee 2013 products, you can add more licenses for $15 apiece, which is quite a good deal.

Shared Antivirus Protection
This mega-suite offers the same antivirus protection as McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013. Do please refer to that review for full details.

Getting McAfee installed on four of my malware-infested test systems required scanning with McAfee's Stinger and Cleanboot tools as well as tedious hours working with tech support via live chat or on the phone. In the end, its test results weren't impressive. It's score of 5.3 points for overall malware cleanup is precisely average, well below the 6.6 point achieved by Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete 2013 and Norton 360 (2013) . Many products detected 100 percent of the rootkit samples, and Kaspersky Internet Security (2013) scored an excellent 9.4 points for rootkit cleanup. McAfee's 4.0 point score is near the bottom. For a rundown on how I test malware removal, see How We Test Malware Removal.

McAfee proved more effective than most at blocking malware downloads. It blocked connection to the malware-hosting URL in most cases, and blocked others during the download process. However, when confronted with already-downloaded samples it didn't do quite as well.

McAfee's 8.9 points for malware blocking is above the average, but just barely. Webroot scored a near-perfect 9.9 in this test, and ten other recent products outscored McAfee. Almost half the current products scored a perfect 10.0 for rootkit blocking; McAfee managed 8.0. The article How We Test Malware Blocking explains how I perform and score this test.

Tests by independent antivirus labs generally give McAfee good marks, but other products receive consistently excellent ratings in these same tests. Bitdefender Total Security 2013 in particular excels across the board. The chart below summarizes recent tests. For more about the labs and their tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/euY8Gev6uzY/0,2817,2412955,00.asp

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