McAfee Internet Security 2007 (8-in-1)
Well as it is that time of year again when security vendors roll out their latest products, that everyone will take a look. Security is still a big business and money is often spent keeping your information to yourself without letting the bad guys take hold.
Previously, I have reviewed Norton Antivirus 2007 and well it did not do so well in our reviews when it came to protection. This time its the number 2 guy in the security world’s turn to be taken apart and that is McAfee Internet Security Suite.
About McAfee Internet Security Suite
This product contains the whole kitten caboodle when it comes to securing your computer. It has antivirus, firewall, anti-phishing products and much more. But does that more mean better? Well, hopefully so, but you will see in the review how I found this product.
How the product was tested
The same testing methods were used as in NAV 2007, although we did test email this time around. Also tested was parental control features (only blocking inappropriate images) and also gave popup blocking a whirl.
We also wanted to put McAfee’s SiteAdvisor to the test to see how well it can detect phishing sites and also rootkits that have been installed on the system.
Configuration
MIS 2007 MenuConfiguration is key when it comes to ultimate protection of your computer. MIS’s default security settings are quite adequate to protect you from a variation of attacks. Built into MIS is an anti-phishing tool that will let you know if a website is malicious or legitimate.
On the antivirus side of configuration, you can exclude specific folders, or let McAfee scan everything on your computer. It does take some time to get used to the menu system that was created for MIS 2007, it is not that easy, but after a few tries, you’ll know where to go to change settings.
Functionality
McAfee still relies on the popup method of asking the user for its decision on whether to permit a program access to the Internet or not. Although this might not always be the best method of protection; sometimes the user might not know exactly what to do and might block something that is legitimate.
The SiteAdvisor is a good feature that can prevent you from downloading a malicious file or if you download a file from a site that it deems suspicious. SiteAvisor will warn you with a giant warning box informing you that it feels that a program is malicious. What is even better is that not only does SiteAdvisor work in Internet Explorer, but it also works in FireFox! It is great to see that FireFox was not ignored this time around but Opera users were.
With its enhanced scanning engine, McAfee was improved considerably when it was scanning my test system. I had infected my system with rootkits when McAfee was enabled and it immediately warned me and quarantined the bad file. Just to test how well the system was, I disabled McAfee and then installed the same rootkits and low and behold they were found as well. Virus scanning and spyware removal was also improved.
Also included in MIS 2007 is a backup program that it can easily backup specific files and restore them when needed. It has the ability to backup to a network drive, USB drive as well as CD\DVD media. It can perform these on a scheduled basis and you can easily select what you want to have stored.
MIS 2007 has a great feature in letting you scan your network drives for viruses as well, for those who say use multiple computers or have their own personal file server for backups you can easily scan the drive for viruses and other malware.
As usual, MIS has the ability to scan all your incoming email, and for those who are interested in getting Office 2007, this product can integrate with the next version of Office.
McAfee’s parental filter is quite weak when trying to filter inappropriate pictures. It does not really block everything in the instance of multiple pictures but it does block some. Keyword filtering is also an option as well as website blocking.
Conclusion
What can I say about this product? It has improved tremendously. There are quite a bit of features added likeMcAfee Site Advisor Quick Clean that can easily remove unnecessary temporary files, but also shred them so whatever was deleted cannot be recovered. The Firewall setup is quite simple and also gives you the chance if your system is infected to terminate all connections to the Internet and other networks so you can focus on your system and clean it out.
What surprised me was the fact that SecurityAdvisor worked with FireFox, and as I have stated on many occasions, Internet Explorer is a target and an easy way for hackers to infect your system.
Overall, MIS 2007, has greatly improved, and its scanning is much quicker than its competitor and picks up a lot more viruses as well.
Screenshots
More Information
Homepage: McAfee.com
Download: MIS 2007 Trial