McAfee is a big company with a mixed reputation. Some people totally hate their products and are not afraid to make this public, while others have used them for a long time and did not switch to products from other vendors. I am totally new to the world of McAfee products and I was curious to know if this mixed reputation is well deserved or not. Therefore I was very excited to test McAfee Internet Security 2012 and see how effective it is at securing a Windows computer. Let’s see what I have found out.

First Impressions

Downloading and installing McAfee Internet Security 2012 is not as easy as you would expect. In order to download it, you need to first create an account with McAfee. Then, when you run the setup file, you are asked to enter your account details before being able to customize your installation and proceed with it. If you ask me, this is a bit too much, especially for users who are interested only in a short trial.

At first, you download only a small file that will later on download everything needed. In the end, the total download size is 192 MB. This is the biggest suite I’ve tested so far in sheer size.

The installation process takes some patience and a few clicks. If you don’t plan on using all the features included with McAfee Internet Security 2012, I highly recommend that you make a custom installation and uncheck the things you do not need.

A very likely candidate to not being wanted, is McAfee Online Backup. This is a separate application, consuming additional resources and annoying you with messages to configure it, unless you actually go ahead and use it.

Once the installation was finished, I was pleased to notice that McAfee Internet Security 2012 did not require a restart in order to start functioning and it updated itself automatically.

I never used McAfee Internet Security 2012 before working on this review and for me the interface was very different from what I’ve seen with other suites. However, if you look at our 2011 and 2010 reviews, you can easily notice that interface-wise, nothing has been changed. If you liked the old interface, this going to be fine with you. Otherwise you won’t be pleased.

Integration with Windows

The integration with Windows 7 and its features remains a strength for McAfee. As previous versions do, McAfee Internet Security 2012 disables the Windows Firewall and Windows Defender services during its installation. This helps to avoid conflicts between security solutions and to keep your system’s performance at reasonable levels.

Another positive aspect I enjoyed is that McAfee Internet Security 2012 is aware of the profile you assign to a network in Windows. Therefore, some of its firewall settings are adjusted with one choice. Also, this ensures your network sharing features work well, if you choose the correct location for the network.

The suites’ processes required approximately 115MB of RAM when running, slightly more than what other security suites need. However, the impact on boot timings was pretty low: McAfee added only 5 seconds to my system’s boot.

One of the tests I make is to try to forcefully end the protection services used by each security suite. I was able to close only the processes which were not very important, like the one showing the user interface. The core security processes, like the real time scanning service could not be killed. However, when I launched McAfee Internet Security 2012 from its shortcut, the suite was reporting that its firewall was no longer turned on, even though its service could not be killed. Adding better termination protection for all its services would have been welcome, considering this is a flaw identified also in previous versions of the product.

Last, but not least, I look at how well each suite integrates with the major Internet browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Unfortunately my impression is a mixed one. McAfee does install the McAfee Site Advisor addon for each browser. However, the implementation quality seems to differ between browsers. In Google Chrome you get the best experience and the most discreet implementation: you see only an icon that tells you McAfee is there and actively protecting you. In other browsers you get a toolbar instead. Also, in Internet Explorer, the add-on did not work for me from the first try. I had to restart the browser and manually enable the add-on again. Not sure if there was a conflict or if I did something wrong, but, if you use Internet Explorer as you main browser, it is best to double-check the status of the McAfee Site Advisor add-on. Also, the reaction time of McAfee Site Advisor seemed slower than with other security suites, especially in Internet Explorer. It is impossible to quantify objectively with measurements, but it always felt slower, always a second later to react.

Ease of Use & Configuration

As I mentioned before, this was my first time testing a McAfee product and, I could not help finding it strange and somewhat old-school. First of all, the application window cannot be maximized and you can change its height but not its width. While you browse through its configuration options and menus, you remain out of screen space and you are forced to scroll or minimize other sections.

While the main options can be easily found on the home screen of the suite, others are buried under Navigation. Who would think of searching for the suite’s activity logs under Navigation?

It might be just me, but I think McAfee needs to spend some time on improving the interface of the product, how it is structured and how some buttons and options are named. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not like I could not find my way around. I just needed more time to think about where I could find certain options and to experiment more than I would with other security suites.
Also, a less “ideal" aspect is its apparent slowness in reacting to the user’s clicks and commands. It is very subtle but, if you browse though lots of menus and options, you start to notice the fact that the suite needs a bit of time until it reacts to what you ask it to do. Again, it is small but noticeable.

Let’s go to more measurable aspects of the suite, such as schedule scans. By default, you have a weekly system scan scheduled for you. McAfee allows you to customize when and how often that scan it is made, but doesn’t allow you add other scans or change the locations being scanned. Strange choice if you ask me.

Regarding computer scanning options - you have the standard ones you would expect, plus the ability to create custom scans and add exclusions. An option I enjoyed it the possibility to shut down your computer, if a scan is finished and no threats are found during the scan.

Regarding advanced configuration options - the picture is again mixed. The firewall provides the advanced options you would expect. However, other modules don’t provide as much customization. A good example is the antivirus/antimalware module: you don’t know if rootkit scanning is enabled or disabled, you cannot create your own custom scans, etc.

Most of the configuration options you encounter are easy to understand. Also, for the ones where you need help, I’m happy to report that the Help provided by McAfee is good and explains everything clearly. Reporting is also executed well by McAfee. You get nice and easy to understand reports, a traffic monitor that shows the traffic levels generated by the programs running on your computer and detailed logs of the suite’s activities.

Regarding support though, things are not that great. The price paid for the security suite covers only access to the built-in Help system and to McAfee’s online community. If you need to get in touch with their tech support team, you need to pay additional feels, much higher than the price of the product’s 1-year license.

The alerts being shown by McAfee Internet Security 2012 are few and easy to understand. What I did not enjoy though, is the fact that, when the real-time protection module detects more than one infected file, it shows individual alerts for each. You end up closing way too many alerts. It would have been better to aggregate information about all infected files into one alert, instead of making the user make too many clicks and take too many decisions. I felt the need to check the "Do not show this alert again" box and that’s not good for security.

Firewall

In our previous reviews, the firewall was highlighted as having some problems. Therefore I paid close attention to see if any improvements have been made.

I quickly noticed that McAfee made some curious design and configuration decisions. It’s great that McAfee Internet Security 2012 looks at the network location you assign to each connection. This seems to make a difference in the protection you receive, but not a lot. What I find worrying is that, indifferent of the network you are connected to, the default security level for the firewall is Outgoing Access. This means all your programs are given outgoing Internet access. You will not get any warnings of applications trying to connect to the Internet but you also get less security.

If an infected program goes undetected, with this setting, it can establish connections to the Internet and send spam from your computer, report data to person which created that program or do other kinds of unwanted things.

I recommend McAfee users change this setting to Monitored Access. This way, you are warned when a program unrecognized by McAfee Internet Security 2012 tries to access the Internet and you can decide to prevent it from doing so.

Another weird aspect is the fact that the McAfee firewall is able to provide attack detection and blocking for different kinds of scenarios, such as denial of service attacks and others. However, these detection capabilities are turned off by default.

Again, I recommend users to turn on these capabilities.

In our previous review, we reported poor protection results. I tested McAfee Internet Security 2012 using Nmap and Nessus and I’ve noticed different results this time. Unfortunately, when using the Home network profile and the Outgoing Access security level, your computer will have 13 open ports, one of which has a medium impact on security, making your computer vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. This is ironic, considering the firewall can block such attacks. It’s just configured by McAfee not to provide detection and blocking of such attacks. :)

Also, the MAC address of the network card was identified together with the exact version of my operating system. This result is poorer than what we found in the 2011 version.

When switching to the Public network profile and the Stealth security level, things improved dramatically, unlike when we tested the 2011 version of the suite. This time, no open ports were found and no information except the MAC address was identified.

Even so, the results are average at best. The McAfee firewall needs a much better default configuration if it wants to be competitive with solutions provided by other vendors.

Antivirus and Antispyware Features

When we tested the 2011 version of the McAfee Internet Security Suite, we noticed that it provided average results at removing malware. The 2012 version seems to have improved though. First, the SiteAdvisor add-on did its job and blocked access to malicious websites.

When I inserted an infected memory stick, I was promptly asked to scan it and the scan identified and removed all malware. The removal of the malware worked without issues.

I also made a complete scan of my system and I found it to be slow. Not as slow as Comodo, but definitely slower than many other security suites.

I searched for what independent organisations had to say about its effectiveness. AV-Test awarded McAfee an average 4.5 score out of 5 for protection and a low 3.0 score for repairing infected files. The results are confirmed also by Virus Bulletin which awarded an 80%+ for its reactive detection rate and an average 70%+ for its proactive detection rate, placing McAfee in the lower half of their rankings.
AV-Comparatives tested only an older version of McAfee and awarded their top Advanced+ ranking. However, McAfee was placed at the bottom of the list of products receiving this ranking.

Verdict

Unfortunately McAfee Internet Security 2012 remains an average product which suffers mostly from its poor default configuration. It provides weak firewall protection and average antivirus protection. The dated interface also doesn’t help in making a nicer figure and it needs improvements, considering that it has not been changed for more than two years.

McAfee Internet Security 2012 it is definitely not recommended to casual users and even the more technically skilled users might be put off by it. For them it doesn’t offer as many advanced configuration options as other suites do, except for the firewall. Luckily, improving the default configuration leads to much better protection being provided.

Purchasing options

McAfee Internet Security 2012 can be purchased from Amazon UK (for European readers) or Amazon US (for North American readers). If you choose to buy it from Amazon - using these links - we will receive a small affiliate commission which will help pay for some of our work on the site. Also, the prices on Amazon are much lower than those liste on the official McAfee website.

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The Best Internet Security Suites of 2011-2012
Security for Everyone - How We Review Products