McAfee security scam plus

Post date: Jul 10, 2013 7:41:11 PM

For the last few years, the internet community has been aware and often very critical of the decision by Oracle to install (by default!) McAfee security scan plus with every Java update. Similar installations might occur with Adobe updates, so it is not clear where the unwanted software originated in this case. You need to be very careful and uncheck that option whenever a new update is installed. (This is equally annoying as bundling the "Ask toolbar", but that's a different discussion).

Especially if you already have another antivirus installed, the presence of the McAfee software can bring your computer to a complete crawl. Recently, I run my multicomponent benchmark on a machine that had Microsoft security essentials and Mcafee security scan plus running at the same time. The computer was so slow to be almost unusable. For example, ugradging the security essentials signature takes about 20 minutes (as opposed to well under a minute). One CPU core runs 100% at all times, even though no application in the task manager uses more than a few %.

Does all this really matter for EPR multicomponent fitting? Well, we always like hard numbers, so here we go using the v0.6 benchmark:

(Machine is an older WIndows Vista computer with a Intel Core2 4300 running at 1.8GHz, 3GB of Ram.)

With Mcafee security scan plus installed:

Serial: 10Hz (45% of the normal speed)

Parallel: 24Hz (57% of the normal speed)

Cached: 7452Hz

After removing Mcafee security scan plus:

Serial: 22Hz (2.2x faster!)

Parallel: 42Hz (1.75x faster!)

Cached: 7836Hz

You do the math!

Now go to your control panel and see if you accidentally installed that garbage and uninstall it immediately. You computer is going to thank you and your EPR line shape fits will complete in half the time.

Seriously!