McAfee Total Protection review

Total Protection is one of McAfee’s top products giving you full protection against viruses, malware, phishing and spam. It also includes parental controls, a two-way firewall, data backup and rates websites for safety.

It’s only available as a download, though the process is very simple, and there are options to buy for multiple computers on a one or two year subscription.

What we like best

The interface is quite simple with two quick buttons for scans and updates on the left hand side. It’s then split into individual components with advanced menus.

The advanced interface is more confusing, but it allows you to tweak and specify the software to suit your needs, with information on internet traffic, security threats etc.

Total Protection gives you a comforting green tick if everything is ok with your system, but gives you one click solutions to correct problems. Total Protection will keep your computer safe against most malware out there and it regularly updates as well.

The software is unobtrusive and won’t distract you when you are on the Internet or during gaming. McAfee SiteAdvisor gives you a green or red rating on search engine results in order to warn you about suspicious sites.

Another tool is Quick Clean which allows you to clean up your computer and your system registry by deleting obsolete files. There’s a shortcut through to the Windows de-frag tool and Digital Shredder is a minor but very useful tool for permanently deleting files.

What we like least

The main downside of Total Protection is that although the scans are fast, they do slow down the computer. The additional processes take up a lot of system memory, and it’s pretty sluggish after a boot.