Re: A captive set of succkers? BUY IT NOW !!!
Yes indeed, I never said Mcafee was ever good, and I tar Symantec with the same brush.
Buy a big brand name and some average software, put them together and, bingo.
Peter Norton went from being the premier name in disk tools, to being Norton a brand of self-destroying crapware, with a friendly looking man on the cover, who never coded a single line of the contents.
Software so average, they have to pay other companies to trick you into installing it, or starting with it.
Microsoft bought a "reputedly" big (Giant) anti-spyware and kept it as average as it ever was. At least Microsoft admit that their current shoddy AV is considered the baseline and you should go no lower in protection (some people think baseline means good, not "base"line).
Then intel decided they wanted a slice of lucrative AV pie, so bought McAfee thinking only of the captive barrel-fish, not about the fact they bought a turd that needed a lot of fixes and maintenance, hence was on the market.
Without a background in AV, and the same McAfee team, there was never any hope of intel improving their turd.
All they could do was polish that turd within an inch of its life, and continue to buy or trick their way into peoples PCs, until they find a mug to offload it to.
When other companies try to give you extras with a download, we call it "Adware" and "Potentialy Unwanted Program".
Adobe and Oracle are as guilty as McAfee, Symantec and Google for using delivery methods commonly blocked by most AV.
Oh the irony.