McAfee Privacy Service

Offering up security online, McAfee is evidently pushing the idea of software as a service. If this catches on depends on how you feel.

From my experiences, this application is a bit of risk proposition, unless you are already invested in McAfee products

Friday, October 22, 2004 

McAfee Privacy

McAfee Inc.
www.mcafee.com 

Requirements 

Windows 98 through to XP

10 Mb of Free Space

IE 5.5

16 Megs of Ram 

$ 34.99 to $ 69.90 with monthly subscriptions for $ 4.95 

McAfee has an interesting product line. Unlike full featured utility software makers like Iolo or Symantec, McAfee has focused their direction on security. This includes Firewalls, Antivirus protection and Spam protection. The focus is on security applications. Filling in the missing parts, like ad blocking, chat monitoring, age based access, web site blocking, content filtering, online transaction protection and assorted privacy issues, McAfee has created a subscription service to handle these issues. 

While not available in box form, one downloads the program and then is required to purchase the service. Once the subscription runs out, so does the service. 

Several companies have flirted with the idea of software as a service, but few have implanted it in this manner. Considering the changes and alterations that operating systems make, as well as the new threats, most users end up updating or buying new software to battle security threats anyway. There are advantages here, but there are draw backs as well.

The first is that you do not actual own the software. You do pay for it, but it is not a physical product.  For some users, that alone is a big issue.  Then there are issues of downloading and updating. For broadband users that is a non issue. However, there are a great many users out there that still use dial up connections. In some parts of the U.S. cable access and broadband is still years away. 

Then there is the cost. This seems a bit steep considering that it is more of “complimentary” service to a full featured program. While your privacy is protected, this program does not include a firewall or anti virus.  If it had those elements thrown in, this could be an interesting option. 

Then there is overlap. Internet Explorer just added a very good pop up blocker with Service Pack 2 to Xp. Many companies now include security protections of their own with their services and utilities.  So there is an issue of services being duplicated here. 

My biggest issue here is reliability. When I ran the service and then stopped it I noticed every single McAfee program I had activated simply stopped working and had to be reactivated.  If this happens with other McAfee products it makes one wonder. 

Summation 

Factoring in the services offered, McAfee maybe on to something with Privacy protection. My feeling is that there is not enough here to justify the price.  Should these features be incorporated into their Firewall or Anti Virus protection, they make a lot of sense. As stand along adjuncts to the existing line, they really do not make a lot of sense to purchase at these price points as part of a protection system. Plus, there is the issue of reliability. I ran into some problems with this program deactivating every McAfee product I had installed. Only when I uninstalled it did the problems go away.