I tend to not hear anything good about McAfee, but, if it works for you, great.
I used to have a nice scheme going. For several years, Fry’s would put Norton, or Bitdefender, on sale. At the same time, the a/v company was offering a “competitive conquer rebate”, where I would fill out the form, and mail it in with the title page of the owner’s manual, or CD, from the a/v I had been using. Between the sale price, and the competitive rebate, my net cost of the a/v was the sales tax, period, as the rebates entirely offset the selling price.
Of course Fry’s is gone now. Norton was using that rebate scheme to bulk up it’s volume before the company was sold, and Bitdefender was doing the same thing to be competitive. Once Norton was sold, the “free net of rebates”, offers ended.
Another thing about Norton, even after paying their steep price, you can’t activate the s/w until you sign up for automatic renewal. When I first started using Norton, in the late 90s, pattern update subscriptions were free for the life of the product. Then it was $4. Now, iirc, it’s $80/year.
Now, I start looking for sales on a/v s/w months before the current package expires. I learned something. If I buy another package on Bitdefender’s site, the 12 month clock to expiration starts right then, even if it is four months before my existing package expires. I bought a download package, on sale, at Best Buy one year. BB e-mailed a link to me to download the new package. I left that e-mail in my in-box, so it’s expiration clock did not start, until, a few months later, a day before the old package expired. Then I opened the e-mail, clicked the link, the new s/w installed, and I got a full 12 months of use out of it.
On the last go around, Office Depot had a 1 year/5 license package on sale for, iirc, $40. Bought the box containing a card with the key on it. and kept it on the shelf for a few months, until my existing package expired. Punched in the new key number, and I was back in business. Bitdefender has gotten on board with the required sign-up for automatic renewal. So, I sign up for auto-renwal, get the new a/v package going, and immediately cancel the auto-renewal.
As you may have gathered, I have been using Bitdefender for several years. It has snagged some sketchy stuff the moment it tries to get into my computer, from some surprising sources, like the advertising incorporated in legitimate web sites.
A word about “free” security software. From time to time, I have a spare computer to putz around with. Back then, you only got one license with a security package, so I went cheap and used the free Zone Alarm firewall on the putz around machine. One day, I was talking with one of the IT guys at work. He was singing the praises of Zone Alarm. I told him about the time I was putzing around with the machine with Zone Alarm on it, hit one web site, and the file folder and flashlight icon almost immediately popped up on my screen, indicating the site had penetrated ZA in a moment, and was scanning my computer. I pulled the phone cord out of the jack as that was the fastest way to disconnect, and put down “free” software as dangerously ineffective.
As luck would have it, I found a computer in the neighbor’s trash a couple weeks ago. It runs Win 10 perfectly well, so I adopted it. Thought about putting “free” AVG or Avast a/v on it, but, the Bitdefender package had three more licenses available, so the putz around machine got top shelf a/v protection.
Steve