McAfee Total Protection is a shining example of why no company should ever use Agile. I’m a long way from newbie in the software world. I mean over 30 years of software consulting on many different platforms in quite a few different industries should count for something. Heck, I even write an award winning technical book series. This software is looking up at worthless hoping to one day be that good.
☆☆☆☆☆Forget About Your Email
Some genetic misfit decided they should have some “trust database” of some kind. You have to fill out an online thing to get your company email server added to it. Just putting an override into McAfee on your computer simply won’t work, at least not reliably. I mean I barely use Windows machines. I have a few of them but 98% of my life is done with Linux. At the time I had two elderly relatives with Windows 7 machines who will never upgrade. Nobody should have to pay for advertisement free Solitaire and requiring Solitaire to have an Internet connection is a crime against the human race.
After Norton became a problem and started trying to sell me everything under the sun at ever increasing prices, I moved to McAfee simply because it was a known name. Man did I fight with this trying to get reliable access to email.
Forget About Your Blog
My Web sites and email are currently hosted by GeekStorage. I get great service from there. McAfee Total Protection seemed to have a perpetual hard on for GeekStorage. Not only did they keep jacking my connection to the email server, it randomly blacked access to my blogs and other ordinary Web sites. The combination of that external “trust” database and what they appeared to be doing to my local DNS just made the Internet and incredibly shrinking world. It reminded me of my youth when we only had five television stations.
The Agile Angle
I’m sure the “trust database” started with a “User Story.” Some low wage software developer that never went to college quickly set up a “trust” database with about five entries in it then hacked the product to always look things up in the “trust database.” A quick code review combined with an automated test which tested nothing and geek collected the spring points.
This is why you need an application architect and full SDLC. The entire ecosystem for the care and feeding of the “trust database” needed to actually be in existence prior to the software in the field required it. Instead, it is not even a “User Story” sitting in the backlog.
The Real Scam
You don’t get a refund. Yes, refunds are only issued within the first 30 days of purchase. It is the job of support to keep you trying things until your 30 days are up.
Be warned, avoid this like the plague. They took a product which had a good reputation and completely ruined it.
