McAfee VirusScan 8.0 review

Jeff Bertolucci CNET

Published: 29 Sep 2003

The boxed version of McAfee’s VirusScan 8.0 is now identical in appearance and functionality to the online product. A major face-lift has resulted in a streamlined virus fighter that's faster to install, easier to configure and less of a resource hog than Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2004. VirusScan 8.0 also offers enhanced worm-detection tools, better integration with Microsoft Outlook and spyware detection. Unfortunately, McAfee's free online technical-support chat, once among the best in the business, is often inaccessible now.

Setup & interface

McAfee recently merged its retail version of VirusScan 8.0 with its online version. That's good news for users who want to download and install the program via the Internet. Better yet, VirusScan's online installation file is dramatically smaller -- a mere 8MB compared with version 7.0's 30MB to 40MB; in our tests, it downloaded in 25 minutes via a 56Kbps dial-up link. Installation, both online and via CD, was trouble-free and took only a few minutes. Upon start-up, VirusScan downloaded updated virus definitions, as most anti-virus programs do.

Last year, we praised VirusScan's browser-like interface but found its multiple Web-page-like screens tedious to navigate -- particularly when you had to dig through several layers just to change a few basic settings. VirusScan 8.0 replaces the previous version's ungainly interface with the McAfee Security Center, an interface from which you can manage all of the security programs on your PC -- including third-party firewall, privacy and spam-blocking applications. The Center's Security Index uses graphical bars (with a 1 to 10 rating scale) to show how well your PC is protected against all kinds of digital intrusions -- viruses, hackers, spam and so on -- and it provides quick access to VirusScan settings.

Despite Security Center's embrace of third-party security applications, it's still very McAfee-centric. On our test PC, for instance, we use the ZoneAlarm firewall. Security Center accurately detected the presence of ZoneAlarm, as indicated by the 10.0 rating on the AntiHacker index; but by default, it stated that McAfee's Personal Firewall Plus was ‘not installed’, a statement that might confuse some novices into thinking they weren't fully protected.

Features

VirusScan 8.0 may be leaner, but its virus-fighting tools retain their muscle. McAfee has improved its worm-detection skills with WormStopper (previously known as HAWK), a PC system behaviour-analysis tool. WormStopper blocks malicious, wormlike behaviour, often before a signature-file download is available. It's difficult to predict future worms; however, VirusScan detected and deleted the MSBlast worm on our test PC, something our previous anti-virus program missed. The ScriptStopper feature, which finds and blocks malicious scripts, is unchanged from version 7.0.

Improved integration with Microsoft Outlook includes on-demand scanning of all email folders and archives to find viruses and worms lying dormant there. Like Norton AntiVirus 2004, it scans inbound and outbound IM messages; its predecessor scanned inbound only.

The merger of the online and retail flavours of VirusScan also creates a buying dilemma. The £34.98 retail package includes a year of virus signature updates, which after the first year is an annual fee of £19.99. By comparison, the online subscription is £24.99 a year. Online subscribers get program updates, which include new and upgraded features, as soon as they become available. But retail buyers must wait for the next version.

Performance

In our tests, VirusScan 8.0 caused less of a drag on system performance than Norton AntiVirus 2004. However, McAfee scanned our 1GB drive much more slowly than Norton did. Here are our test results:

McAfee VirusScan 8.0 v Norton AntiVirus 2004
	Test system	McAfee VirusScan 8.0	Norton AntiVirus 2004
SysMark2002 Internet-content-creation (ICC) score	233	234	223
Normalised score	100	100	96
Percentage degradation	n/a	0	4
Average boot time (s)	40.8	48.38	52.72
Scan 1GB directory; average scan time (m)	n/a	4.75	3.59

In past VirusBulletin tests, McAfee's VirusScan has been tested and passed only once, back in June of 2002. By comparison, Norton AntiVirus has been tested six times and earned the coveted VB 100 percent title each time. However, it’s hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from such limited data. Previous versions of VirusScan have also been certified by the independent antivirus testing laboratories at West Coast Checkmark, ICSA Labs and AV-test.org.

Service & support

McAfee, like Symantec, charges for its phone support: $3 (~£1.81) per minute (with the first two minutes free), or $39 (~£23.50) per incident. A more affordable option, obviously, is McAfee's free online technical chat. On the plus side, McAfee's online support site contains a handy wizard-like Answer Center that helps you pinpoint and resolve technical problems. And the live technicians, once we contacted them via chat, were always polite and helpful.

Unfortunately, we often found the chat queue to be unbearably long, independent of day or night; once we waited 1 hour and 20 minutes. Chat also exhibited flaky behaviour: one time we were booted off after 15 minutes in the queue, even though we hadn't yet chatted with anyone. Hopefully, McAfee will correct these technical glitches soon.

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