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McAffee AntiVirus and Firewall

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13 replies

by doug.vanslyke

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I am currently using the ZoneAlarm firewall and the McAfee Antivirus and they seem to be conflicting with each other as my system slows down when both are installed. Is the McAffee firewall as good as ZoneAlarm? Do you have any idea what the conflict might be?

13 replies

by isys

Different functions. Zonealarm keeps track of what your computer is executing, McAfee screens incoming content. Both are TSRs, which means they run all the time. How many programs your PC can effectively run at once is a function of your hardware. What that means is, if some is good more is better. More RAM, more processor horsepower. If the performance hit is unacceptable, you will have to decide which to do without. My opinion would be Zonealarm. If you get a nasty virus it could be fatal.

by b_pope

I run Zone Alarm Pro & Norton Antivirus with no trouble. A friend tried Zone Alarm with Mcafee & had nothing but problems, he switched to Norton & hasen't had a problem since.

I've had to take Mcafee off two other machines because of resource problems will running it, these machines didn't even have Zone Alarm.

I'm sure lots of people have no problem running both, but I've never figured out how to make them work together, if switching to Norton isn't an option get rid of Zone Alarm.

Asanswerer #1 suggested keep your antivirus, your odds of being hacked are small, of course that also depends on the types of programs you install & sites you visit also.

by b_pope

For myself Zone Alarm shows me what programs on my computer are trying to access the internet when I'm connected. No antivirus program does this.
That is the one feature I'll never give up, you'd be amazed at what programs do this when you run them.
The question you always need to ask yourself is "why is this program trying to access the internet"?. If you don't know the answer maybe that program shouldn't be allowed to, so your back to needing Zone Alarm.

by b_pope

As to your question yes & no, for both firewalls, for the home user your risks of being hacked are small which makes Zone Alarm the better one, because it lets you control your personal info that programs you run can & do relay back through your internet connection to their host sites. Where Mcafee & Norton ignore this info.

Have you tried checking through your system configuration utility in system tools & see whats running in the startup tab, maybe if you disable other programs from startup that might help
check this site for info on startup programs & what their funtions are.
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm

by patrick horn

Mcafee Has released a patch to improve performance problems. It lies in the search engine, or how, where and for what types of files it looks for. Seems that Some proc's and mb's don't play well with the program. Go to the Mcafee website and download the latest s-dat. This should fix your problem. It did at work for me. Keep in mind Mcafee is a resource pig. I run Norton's at home and don't have the same performance hits as with Mcafee with the same types of options running.

by gario

Play with the McAfee config. See what happens when you turn off 'filtering.'

by jprobeck

A few years ago I ran McAfee on two different machines. One Win98 first edition and the other Win98 SE. Out of the blue I started getting fatal exceptions on both machines several times a day while surfing the net. Eventually I removed McAfee and went to Norton and no longer had any fatal exceptions. When I contacted McAfee via email, I got NO reply from Mcafee. I feel you'd do better with Norton.

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