McAfee and MSE?

glennc · 25 Jul 2010

I again request the best guess answer to my question. If the answers could be explained in moderate detail so I can understand, that would be the icing on the cake.
I am currently using Retail McAfee Internet Security. I am happy with it, seems to function quite well. I have been advised repeatedly that this program is an resource hog. That doesn't matter exceptionally to me a I came form 32 bit XP Pro with a 3 Ghz Celeron. But previously against common sense and other members excellent advise, I sneak looks into the Event Viewer. I've noticed some real protection McAfee processes stopped unexplained and then restarted. This in my limited capacity does not inspire confidence.
I am specifically wondering if I ran along with McAfee Security and MS Firewall and MSE that would create problems. It seems as if every choice I've made in software has had negative consequences of some bizarre kind or another. I would like to run them together to test MSE and Firewall's efficacy while retaining a level of extra protection until I am confident of MS's products being excellent. At which time I'll dump McAfee.
Does this approach make any sense?
glennc

DMHolt57 · 25 Jul 2010

I have run MSE side-by-side with other AV software without encountering any problems. If you have a fast processor and plenty of ram... go for it!

glennc · 25 Jul 2010

Hello DMHolt57,
Thanks for your reply and advice. This seems to be a touchy subject with some, so I will wait for a hopefully bigger answer base.
But I do have 1 on the O.K. side. Appreciate it.
glennc

Adrian · 25 Jul 2010

Good morning Glenn, there are many fine products on the market. For many years Microsoft had also entered the market with a complete AV product called Windows One Care. Microsoft marketed the service as a complete 1 care service and it was expensive. Norton was an industry leader for many years but had a huge drain on resources. During the early release of Windows 7 2.5 years past we had many issues with several Commercially marketed AV programs. As time has gone by many of the commercial AV companies understood the need for lighter AV solutions including Microsoft. Personally I was critical of One Care because the AV side was missing a lot of virus, trojans and malware. Also it was a resource hog.
During the evolution of Windows 7 Microsoft adopted the philosophy of developing a AV solution that would be free! Integrate within the Windows 7 OS and maintain Firewall integrity. I find it light weight, free and it catches more and more virus including malware. In addition mbamm is an excellent free malaware catcher that can be run in conjunction with most AV programs without causing a conflict.

The opinions expressed here are my own and not meant to convey my endorsement.

JonM33 · 25 Jul 2010

glennc said:

I again request the best guess answer to my question. If the answers could be explained in moderate detail so I can understand, that would be the icing on the cake.
I am currently using Retail McAfee Internet Security. I am happy with it, seems to function quite well. I have been advised repeatedly that this program is an resource hog. That doesn't matter exceptionally to me a I came form 32 bit XP Pro with a 3 Ghz Celeron. But previously against common sense and other members excellent advise, I sneak looks into the Event Viewer. I've noticed some real protection McAfee processes stopped unexplained and then restarted. This in my limited capacity does not inspire confidence.
I am specifically wondering if I ran along with McAfee Security and MS Firewall and MSE that would create problems. It seems as if every choice I've made in software has had negative consequences of some bizarre kind or another. I would like to run them together to test MSE and Firewall's efficacy while retaining a level of extra protection until I am confident of MS's products being excellent. At which time I'll dump McAfee.
Does this approach make any sense?
glennc

Never run two AV programs together. Do yourself a favor and uninstall McAfee. MSE is all that you need.

yowanvista · 25 Jul 2010

If you use two or more AV they might conflict with each other and cause system instability

glennc · 25 Jul 2010

Thank you Gentlemen for your continuing advice. Again, I wish to hopefully get a larger sampling and then choose. I hope other members will respond. I, now, do not trust MSE by itself. This may be a completely dumb statement, but from my experience and MS's products, that is where I am. So thus I felt that running both for a while and seeing if MSE functions well, heck I don't even know how it alerts, I can dump what I've come to believe is a bloated application (McAfee).
Appreciate all opinions and experiences.
glennc

Petey7 · 25 Jul 2010

Don't run both on the same machine at the same time, if that is what you are doing. The can conflict with each other causing both not to run correctly and even cause you computer the crash or freeze. Not to mention make it run as fast as an Apple 2. Remove McAfee before trying out MSE. You can re-download it later.

If you don't fully trust MSE (I have no clue why people say all MS products must be bad but use Windows), then install MalwareBytes as a AV you can run on demand once a week or when you think MSE missed something. You can also run Comodo Firewall if you think Windows Firewall isn't enough.

Corrine · 25 Jul 2010

glennc said:

I am currently using Retail McAfee Internet Security. I am happy with it, seems to function quite well.

But previously against common sense and other members excellent advise, I sneak looks into the Event Viewer. I've noticed some real protection McAfee processes stopped unexplained and then restarted. This in my limited capacity does not inspire confidence.

I am specifically wondering if I ran along with McAfee Security and MS Firewall and MSE that would create problems.

Hi, Glennc.

I've included in the quote above what I saw as key items.

What first caught my attention is that you are happy with McAfee. Although McAfee would not be my first choice, the bottom line is if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

However, then you went on to mention processes stopped and restarted. Can you explain what you mean by that, perhaps provide examples.

Lastly, you would positively be asking for problems to have two firewall and two antivirus software programs actively monitoring your computer.

If, as Petey7 mentioned, you feel you need another source of protection, I agree that Malwarebytes' Anti-malware is an excellent choice. (As you probably realize, others have different preferences, which are fine as well.)

whs · 25 Jul 2010

Running 2 AV programs together is generally bad news. The only ones I have ever heard of to work together (because they have been tested together) are Avast and MSE ( avast! blog » Greetings from Redmond ). For normal and reasonable use, you should be well served with one AV program. You can always use one of the recommended scanners (SAS or Malwarebytes) from time to time. If you really want excellent protection, you should do frequent imaging. That way you can always bail yourself out of any tight spot. And imaging is so dead easy - especially with Macrium. And for the really shady surfing, you can always use Sandboxie.