McAfee Total Protection is the penultimate security product from this longtime security vendor, offering a complete suite of security and system-maintenance tools, including various wireless security tools absent from Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare and Symantec Norton 360. Certainly McAfee Total Protection provides the most security and performance features, however it is hobbled by some design and program flaws. It feels like a grab bag of security and performance tools without any clear focus, which will likely frustrate the average user. While it bests Windows Live OneCare, McAfee Total Protection could learn a few things from Norton 360.
Setup and Interface
We downloaded and installed McAfee Total Protection without a problem, although we thought the process was needlessly confusing. From the McAfee.com site, we entered our ID and password, then downloaded the Download Manager onto our desktop. Despite choosing McAfee Total Protection from the McAfee.com site, we were again presented with a list of options and ended up downloading the McAfee VirusScan Plus application instead of the McAfee Total Protection application. If you are not paying attention, you might download the wrong application. Once we downloaded the correct application, however, the installation process was smooth.
McAfee Total Protection requires a mere 175MB, almost half of what Norton 360 requires, and nearly one quarter the size of Windows Live OneCare. Like the others, McAfee Total Protection requires 256MB of RAM. Only McAfee Total Protection works on Windows 2000 through Windows Vista, while both Norton 360 and Windows Live OneCare work on only Windows XP and Windows Vista. Like the other super security suites, the price for McAfee Total Protection includes installation on up to three different PCs (for example, two desktops and a laptop).
