AOL: Kaspersky Out, McAfee and Ad Partners Back In
So what does this have to do with AOL and McAfee. A year ago, AOL signed up with antivirus vendor Kaspersky to provide a lite version of the highly respected scanner 'free of charge' to anyone. The price of free was a EULA that read much like the End User Licence Agreements hosted by some adware companies. AOL quickly seemed to bow to public pressure (or perhaps Kaspersky's own insistence), removing the questionable language from the agreement. A year later - coincidentally in perfect timing with what might be expected to be the end of a yearly contract - AOL has dropped Kaspersky and ushered in McAfee VirusScan. But once again, the price of free has been raised to questionable heights. To get McAfee VirusScan for free, users must sign up for an AOL account. And to do so, they must agree to the standard AOL privacy policy, which reads in part:
The AOL Network and its advertisers may also use ad network providers, including AOL subsidiaries such as Advertising.com, to help present advertisements on the AOL Network and other Web sites. These ad network providers use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies on your computer to help present, better target, and measure the effectiveness of their advertisements, using data gathered over time and across their networks of Web pages to determine or predict the characteristics and preferences of their audience.
And who are these 'ad network providers'? None other than Commission Junction, ValueClick, X10, and DoubleClick, to name a few. The full list may be found here.
Does this version of McAfee Antivirus (from AOL) function as well as McAfee’s commercial front line products ? Will the “so-called spyware hurt anything ?
Thanks
Unfortunately, that new AOL partnership software with McAfee isn’t available from AOL’s page as this present time.
I had the chance to use the prior anti-virus software from the AOL partnership with Kaspersky, and there were no flags raised by a combination of Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware and Safer Networking’s Spybot. However, it was a noted fact that the scanning phase was quite time consuming. But, users could fine tune it to only check certain, important file folders.
If you’re presently using Vista per chance, AVG offers free Vista compatible anti-virus software.
Okay, the new AOL’s ‘McAfee
VirusScan Plus’ is ready for download as of right now. I’m in the process of downloading through McAfee’s download manager.
It seems that you might have to uninstall your current AV program as McAfee’s installer won’t install everything with possible conflicts.
The McAfee package is complete with a firewall and spyware guard.
I am extremely happy to note that McAfee’s firewall stealths all ports!!
Port Probe Test, Gibson’s Shields Up!!: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2
Make sure you go to McAfee’s Security Center control:
-Click ‘Internet And Network’
In the box to the right -Click ‘Configure’
In the next box to appear -Click ‘Advanced’
Move the Security Level to ‘Stealth’
Good luck and safe surfing!!
BTW: Apparently, the subscription ends in a year… we’ll see if there is a fee by then or just another AOL account needed for a refresher serial. That last process could be done with AOL’s former partnership, but may not work the same way now. Either way, AOL has outdone themselves with this new partnership and package. Hey, AOL’s e-mail service is okay too.