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Mcafee Total Protection 2024
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McAfee is one of the most popular antivirus in the market in 2024. It's easy to use, user-friendly, and, most importantly, secure antivirus software. In addition, it comes with additional features, like a VPN and password manager.
Our in-house testing confirms that McAfee is one of the top players in the antivirus market. This antivirus detected most of the malware threats, the apps were easy to navigate, and the extra features were mostly enjoyable to use. However, we did find the iOS apps lacking feature-vise and a few features, like the app boost, didn’t live up to our expectations.
Continue reading this McAfee antivirus review and see exactly how secure it is compared to other antimalware creations. In the end, you’ll be able to decide for yourself if this software is worth the hype and the money.
As one of the best antivirus offerings, McAfee has a very sophisticated suite of security features. From constantly protecting your computer from ransomware, cryptojacking and malware, to offering you additional features to speed up your web browsing and protecting your documents, data and passwords. Simply put, it’s got everything you need to make your internet experience safe and smooth.
McAfee offers three types of scans. You can check your system with a Quick or Full scan as well as select specific folders and files for examination. The quick scanning option is said to take between 5 to 10 minutes while the detailed one – approximately 30 minutes. We’ve tested this antivirus ourselves to check these promises. What’s also worth mentioning is that McAfee additionally offers a Vulnerability Scanner. It looks out for the essential security patches and lets you know when any of your apps need to be updated to reduce the risks of potential cyberattacks.
McAfee firewall operates as a secure wall which filters processes that seem like malware and blocks access to the device. Generally speaking, it’s designed to identify viruses before they enter the system to prevent cyberattacks more efficiently. Also, we’ve tested the usability of the firewall. It’s a truly user-friendly solution as you can easily navigate through the interface to find and use each of its functions. Everything is carefully put under the corresponding tabs for convenience.
Ransom Guard, McAfee’s ransomware protection offering, provides a sophisticated layer of real-time protection without intruding on your online experience. In fact, our favourite thing about McAfee’s Ransom Guard is how unobtrusive it is while you’re online. You’ll never know it’s there unless you go looking for it or if you have a security issue.
As soon as there’s a File Content Transformation, which is McAfee’s fancy way of describing an attempt to encrypt your files, it’ll up your security. It’ll also create protected copies of the threatened files, so you can rest assured you won’t lose any of your data.
McAfee’s Ransom Guard will continue to monitor the threat. And if it persists, it will quarantine the problem and restore your files from backup.
McAfee’s QuickClean is a handy little feature that helps you clean up your computer to improve security and speed. It scans your computer for cookies and temporary files, which can consume valuable space on your computer and provide a hacker with information about you.
Once QuickClean has found tracking cookies and junk files you could do without, it provides you with a report, letting you know how much space you could free up. There is an option to look at everything QuickClean has unearthed. Or you could take the simple way and continue the cleanup with just a click of a button.
McAfee’s Shredder tool is one of our favourite features. Ordinarily, safely disposing of files isn’t quite as simple as hitting Delete. This will only move it as far as your Recycle Bin, which can still be accessed by anyone who gets hold of your machine. And even if you bypass or empty your Recycle Bin, your deleted data will still stay on the disk, which means it could be recovered. But with McAfee’s Shredder feature, you can make sure your file is gone forever. It works by overwriting the file’s data a number of times before it’s deleted.
As soon as you’ve downloaded McAfee, you should find McAfee’s browser extension automatically installed. This extension, named McAfee’s WebAdvisor, gives you easy access to McAfee’s suite of security features.
In our McAfee WebAdvisor review, we found that it protects you from malware and phishing attempts while you’re online without hindering your browser’s performance. Again, this is another feature that keeps you safe without intruding on your internet experience, unless there’s a problem.
McAfee’s password manager, True Key, is one of the better known password managers out there. And with good reason. It lets you manage your passwords while also keeping them really safe and secure.
Mcafee Speed Up offers improved speeds for web browsing and for your apps.
McAfee Web Boost speeds up your browsing by preventing auto-play videos from launching. It does this by overlaying a message across the video that reads, Paused by McAfee Web Boost.
McAfee runs its PC Boost feature in the background in order to divert resources to the apps that need it. This is meant to cut load times. McAfee’s lab results show that this makes load times 6% faster.
McAfee VPN is another useful feature that can help you secure your online activities and remain anonymous when browsing. Compared to the leading best VPN services like NordVPN or Surfshark,, it provides basic security and privacy essentials.
McAfee tries to ensure that your private data would not be compromised by offering a variety of services for identity protection: a password manager, a VPN, a file shredder, etc. You can see the Protection Score of your device based on how many security tools you use.
You can also use the Personal Data Cleanup tool – fill in your details and McAfee will monitor data brokers and analytics if any of them compromise your privacy. There’s also an option to provide your email and they should check the Dark Web for leaked information.
What’s worth mentioning is that McAfee offers $1 million ID theft coverage in case your data has been compromised. However, you should check the Terms of Use whether this option is available in your region.
McAfee offers a range of different payment plans based on how many devices you want to protect. Unfortunately, there’s no free version for desktop, although there is a basic free app version for Android and iOS.
Confusingly, McAfee’s two security packages, Total Protection and LiveSafe, look pretty similar. McAfee’s own website doesn’t clearly lay out the differences between them. So it’s not that easy to make an informed decision about which to go for. Luckily, we’ve done a deep dive to find out the difference between McAfee Total Protection and McAfee LiveSafe to help you decide which one is right for you.
We tested McAfee’s antivirus software on Windows and it was really easy to set up. However, I first tried to download it on my Mac and it came up with an error message, informing me that McAfee’s free trial was not compatible on Mac. So if you’re after a free sample of McAfee’s antivirus offering, Windows is the way to go.
Once set up, the basic functions were easy enough to find on the app. The home screen consists of the Protection Score, Personal Data Cleanup, Antivirus, Secure VPN, ID Protection, and the Tracker Remover features. You can see if the specific feature is enabled/disabled by the green “On” and red “Off” icons. All other McAfee features are accessible through the button with four bubbles on the left side of the screen.
We do recommend going through the settings of some of these so you can make sure they’re working the way you want. We found when we were digging around in the gear icon, that our scheduled scans were due to take place at 4am. As I always shut my laptop off before I go to bed, this was a bit useless to me.
The slightly concerning thing about this was, had I not gone looking for this information, I’d never have known I had virus scans scheduled at all, let alone that they were due to happen at an unsociable hour. There’s no reminder or notification to let you know this is going to happen.
So, while McAfee is quick and easy to set up, it’s not the most user friendly antivirus software we’ve tested and you’ll probably have to play around with it for a while before you get it working the way you want.
McAfee’s mobile apps for Android and iOS provides really quick, simple virus protection for your phone. We tested the mobile app on Android and it has a really clean interface that’s easy to use.
Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that there’s a free McAfee antivirus version for both Android and iPhone devices. It allows you to perform malware scans and enjoy some of the features, like the Memory Booster and the Anti-Theft technology.
As you might expect, when you visit the Customer Support section of the website, there are a lot of helpful guides and answers to frequently asked questions to help you resolve your issue without having to bother a member of the McAfee support team.
However, I found it extremely annoying that to qualify for an audience with a customer support agent you need to fill out a form with a lot of personal data. It includes your first and last names, phone number, email, and verification of your email and problem descriptions. Even when your requests go through, you find out that they cannot fulfill some requests because they have to be done via phone. If you want to get a refund and want to do it via chat, you won't be able to do it.
If you do need to speak to a person, there is certainly more dedicated help available. Once you’ve clicked through a few pages of preliminary questions about the nature of your issue, you’ll land on a page that gives you the option to contact one of McAfee’s customer service advisors via live chat. This is a service that’s available 24/7.
Mcafee Total Protection 2024
Buy on amazon.comMcAfee AntiVirus Protection 2023
Buy on amazon.comMcAfee+ Premium 2023
Buy on amazon.comMcAfee Live Safe
Buy on amazon.comOur Verdict
McAfee offers one of the most comprehensive online security suites we’ve tested, with a whole host of really useful features to keep your devices safe from viruses. We particularly loved the Shredder tool and the WebAdvisor browser extension.
Although there are cheaper online antivirus offerings out there, you get a lot for your money with McAfee, including the use of McAfee’s secure VPN, True Key password manager and encrypted storage.
We were very impressed by how effectively it provides online protection without impeding your internet speeds or online browsing experience.
But McAfee is not without its faults: the website, app and pricing plans are all a bit confusing and disorganized, and the Web Boost/App Boost features can be underwhelming.
However, if you’re looking for antivirus software to protect all your devices at a reasonable price, you can’t go far wrong with McAfee’s antivirus software.