Monday, June 24, 2013

How McAfee is like Prison Sex

"Just do your shit and go away!"

~My Husband

So today, I spied an unwelcome logo on my husband's computer.

Now, for those of you who are unaware, McAfee is pretty well universally panned by anyone with even a modicum of technical sense, because it's little more than bloated malware with a corporate logo on the box. There's dozens of better, cheaper options. It's awful stuff, nearly impossible to uninstall, and so awful that even the guy who created it hates the damn thing.

Umm... not safe for work.

So I told my husband to move, and started figuring this stupid thing out. He says it came with an automatic update. Whether or not that's true, I dunno. He's not one of those wild downloader types. Probably came from Adobe or something.

Anyway, McAfee is an insidious thing. It's like that unexpected prison rape that happens when you drop the soap.


You didn't ask for it, you didn't want it, but you presented yourself in such an attractive fashion that they couldn't resist.

This "security scan tool" is like the anal spreader that prepares you for the unpleasant things about to happen to your backside. Or like that creepy plant in Seymour's back room, but instead of people it's asking for credit card information.

That's right. It doesn't even DO anything; it's just a "clever" marketing gimmick to convince people that their computer is at risk, and they should download something quick to prevent it.

Sound familiar?

Yeah.

McAfee has gone from a pretty decent virus scanner that had better, cheaper competitors to predatory bloatware that behaves an awful lot like malware. Half the time you can't uninstall it, it's so bad the company itself had to release a tool to remove stuff that a regular install can't.

It sneaks upon you when you don't want it, it doesn't want to leave you alone no matter how much you ask, and if you let it stick around, it's going to ask for more, and more.

I was able to finally remove that scan tool from my husband's computer. But I'll tell you one thing: My butt was clenched firmly shut the entire time...



2 comments:

PJ said...

He ain't lying about that update. I just updated something and it installed McAfee without asking me. I was furious. I had to do the usual strange and unusual things to get rid of it. I'm sure they ignored my nasty gram about installing unwanted software on my computer.

Another just installed Chrome without asking me but at least Chrome is easier to get rid of. I use a Chromium without the spyware.

Anonymous said...

"Fun" fact: My university recommended McAfee. Computers bought through the university came with it. **shudder**