McAfee VirusScan is an antivirus program created and maintained by Intel
Security. McAfee VirusScan is intended for home and home-office users; McAfee
VirusScan Enterprise is intended for corporate environments. It is not
available as a standalone package, but is included in McAfee VirusScan Plus,
VirusScan for Mac, or as part of McAfee Internet Security or McAfee Internet
Security for Mac. Additionally, BSkyB and McAfee have produced a "Sky
Broadband" branded version of VirusScan, offered free to Sky Digital customers
upon broadband modem installation. Features
The 2010 edition of VirusScan Plus integrates antivirus, firewall and
anti-spyware capabilities. It includes, amongst other things;
On-access file scanner Inbound and outbound firewall protection
Spyware protection Daily definition updates
McAfee X-Ray rootkit detection McAfee SiteAdvisor – displays a safety
rating for websites based on tests for evidence of spam, malware and phishing
McAfee SystemGuards – monitors a computer for activity that may be caused
by virus infection or hacker activity(discontinued: see below)
In the upgraded release in February 2010 McAfee discontinued SystemGuards in
favor of its Active protection(Artemis), which detects suspicious activity in
real-time and contacts McAfee labs to determine whether the file is a threat.
Artemis was released around August 2008. VirusScan Enterprise
McAfee also produces an enterprise-level product named VirusScan Enterprise:
McAfee has designed this for use on larger networks designed to make
management of antivirus software on multiple computers easier. Unlike the
home-user edition, the Enterprise edition consists of a client application
for networked computers, and a server application, which the system installs
updates and configures settings for all client programs. Clients can be
controlled using the included ePolicy Orchestrator, which is a unified console
that can control VirusScan and other McAfee products.
VirusScan for Mac In November 2008 McAfee announced
VirusScan for Mac 8.6. The main highlights of VirusScan version 8.6
included: Leopard Compatibility: First version
compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Universal Binary: First universal binary
version in the Virex product line. It will run on both Intel- and
PowerPC-based Mac computers natively. On Access scanning: Features true
blocking On Access Scanning. It scans every file being accessed from or
written to the machine and blocks infections if any. On Access Scanner can
be configured to scan on Read Only, Write only or both. It can also be
configured to scan files on network volumes.
5301 engine support: The latest McAfee Anti-Virus engine.
Apple Mail scanning : It will now scan Apple Mail messages for any infections.
This feature is available through both On Demand Scanner and On Access Scanner.
Controversies = Poor independent test results =
In tests by Virus Bulletin and other independent consumer-organizations,
McAfee VirusScan has not fared well, frequently failing to detect some common
viruses. A review of VirusScan 2006 by CNET
criticized the product due to "pronounced performance hits in two of
our three real-world performance tests" and some users reviewing the same
product reported encountering technical problems.
Some older versions of the VirusScan engine use all available CPU cycles.
As of 2009 McAfee virus-scanning products did not handle false positives
well, repeatedly removing or quarantining known clean files even
after the user restores them. = Customer support criticisms =
Reviewers have described customer support for McAfee products as lacking,
with support staff slow to respond and unable to answer many questions.
= 2010 reboot problem = On April 21, 2010, beginning
approximately at 2 PM GMT, an erroneous virus definition file update from McAfee
affected millions of computers worldwide running Windows XP Service Pack 3. The
update resulted in the removal of a Windows system file on those machines,
causing machines to lose network access and, in some cases, to enter a reboot
loop. McAfee rectified this by removing and replacing the faulty DAT file,
version 5958, with an emergency DAT file and has posted a fix for the affected
machines in its consumer "KnowledgeBase".
= 2012 update issues = An August 2012 update to McAfee
antivirus caused the protection to become turned off and users to lose
internet connections. McAfee was criticized for not notifying users
promptly of the issues when they learned about it.
= Current standing = McAfee, though well-known, continues to
have mixed reviews by industry sources, and the company has prepared a 2015
release series to address current market conditions. This repositioning includes
voice and facial recognition authentication for cloud-based data
security. See also
Internet Security Comparison of antivirus software
Comparison of firewalls References
External links VirusScan for Windows, McAfee
VirusScan for Mac, McAfee