Poor detection results and glacial performance make this suite one to avoid.
Unfortunately, McAfee makes a poor fist of its core job. In our malware tests, it put in a bottom-place performance, protecting us against only 81% of real-world threats. It also came last in our false-positives test: as its 78% score indicates, McAfee regularly threw up unnecessary warnings and demanded our involvement when launching harmless software. Set-and-forget security this certainly isn’t.
McAfee Internet Security 2014 also proved a disappointment in terms of system responsiveness. Our Atom-based system slowed to a crawl: in the Explorer test, we saw performance fall to 74% versus Microsoft Windows Defender, while our applications test produced an ignominious 64% result. Even the McAfee software itself felt sluggish and unresponsive.