McAfee LiveSafe Antivirus and Internet Security Software
Every year, the quality of antivirus programs on the market changes. McAfee was once the top antivirus brand along with Norton Security. Although there is a lot of competition, McAfee is still able to provide high-quality antivirus protection and customer support as of 2025. Check out the ratings and reviews, and then ask yourself if it's worth the money.
There are many advantages and many reasons to choose McAfee. On the one hand, the PC is protected from viruses for free. But is this enough time for users to test the virus scanner? All tests show that McAfee is still one of the most robust and secure antivirus protection software programs on the market. We conducted a thorough test of this antivirus software in January 2025.
Product Overview:
McAfee Total Protection 2024
McAfee Internet Security 2024
McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2024
Operating Systems:
Mac
Windows 10
Windows 8
Windows 8.1
Windows 7
Android
Mac OS X
Security: Can McAfee Software be Trusted?
As of this writing, McAfee Total Security is the only McAfee product that has been reviewed by the leading cybersecurity organizations, AV-Comparatives and AV-TEST.
More about it below, but our tests show that there isn't much difference between the two packages. Here are our main findings:
McAfee Total Protection scored higher in AV-Comparatives (99.97% protection) and AV-TEST (100% protection).
Both virus scanners offer you three scanning options.
Both virus scanners have a built-in firewall.
Both McAfee LiveSafe and McAfee Total Protection use McAfee True Key, WebAdvisor, and Shredder.
Security Test: How well is McAfee Total Protection Performing?
For Windows, we see that McAfee Total Protection has an AV-Comparatives score of 99.8%, recorded in February and March 2022. This means that 99.97% of risky URLs and files were blocked.
Three safe files were identified as high-risk files during testing. The user could tell whether he accepted the risk or not, so it was not deleted immediately.
AV Test has also reviewed McAfee Total Protection. In December 2021, this organization concluded that this program blocked 100% of potential malware in tests.
McAfee makes fewer mistakes and marks fewer legitimate files as malicious when they are safe.
If you compare McAfee Total Protection's protection to other top antivirus programs, you'll notice only a slight difference. It's better than Avira's service in this regard, which let six malicious files through.
Norton LifeLock, on the other hand, was more secure, with a protection score of 100%. However, this software produced more false positives. However, our own, less extensive tests yielded similar results with McAfee LiveSafe as with McAfee Total Protection.
Real-time protection: McAfee Total Protection
The virus scanner gives you three scanning options:
The quick scan checks the most important files and programs on your device.
Custom scans can be enabled by right-clicking on a specific file and choosing the option with the McAfee logo and "Scan". You're spot-scanning specific files, so that if you doubt the legitimacy of a download or file transfer, you can scan it.
So, even if you don't manually perform a (comprehensive) scan, McAfee will still try to keep you safe. You're also entitled to a refund if the program misses any viruses.
However, this only applies if you've opted for automatic renewal with your subscription.
Real-Time Protection: McAfee LiveSafe
McAfee LiveSafe constantly scans every program you open for any threats, and the virus protection pledge applies to this antivirus software as well. When you turn on LiveSafe, you have three scan types available:
Quick Scan
Full Scan
Custom Scan
In addition to scanning specific files, you can also choose the "Delete" option to delete files directly. We will discuss this in detail under the heading "McAfee Shredder".
McAfee's Firewall
Total Protection and LiveSafe Virus Scanner also offer their robust firewall, which is capable of scanning all incoming files and protecting your network.
This prevents hackers from accessing your computer. It not only scans files, but also checks all incoming data traffic.
However, one major disadvantage of the firewall is that it does not work on macOS at all. Although we followed all the instructions, we still could not complete the firewall setup on macOS.
We have certainly checked the reason for this, and we also contacted customer service. The employee confirmed our suspicions: this feature is not available on Apple products.
Quick cleanup
Parental controls
Password manager
Shredder
At this point, McAfee’s software falls short of becoming the best antivirus for Mac. However, for Windows and other users, we’re going to explain these features in detail below.
True Key: McAfee Internet Security Password Manager
True Key is McAfee’s password manager. It’s a service you can use no matter what subscription you have. Moreover, you can use this password manager as a browser extension in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.
It’s not one of the top-tier password managers, but it’s still quite good.
Login details, including the option for True Key to create unique, strong passwords
Credit cards, IDs, passport numbers, and other personally identifiable information (PII)
Confidential Notes
Any other devices will also require two-factor authentication in the form of email or approval on the first device. You can also set up Windows Hello, fingerprint, or another device for multi-factor authentication.
Privacy: How does McAfee Internet Security Manage Your Data?
Of course, we also reviewed McAfee's privacy policy to see what data the software collects from you.
McAfee Internet Security did not come across as a privacy-friendly company in tests. If you care about your online privacy, you're better off choosing an option like Bitdefender, which also offers a premium VPN.
Overall, we weren't very impressed with McAfee's privacy. Our opinion is as follows:
McAfee Internet Security offers a VPN service, but it's not very good compared to other premium providers.
Privacy protection is not available worldwide.
McAfee Software Safe Family isn't working, and the tracker remover is also disappointing.
McAfee Software collects a lot of personal data and shares it with third parties.
McAfee's Software: Total Protection
From an ease-of-use perspective, McAfee Total Protection is a good virus scanner for beginners: it's not too difficult to navigate or understand.
However, as mentioned, macOS users may encounter problems. One example is that you can't turn on the firewall. Again, many features don't work on macOS at all.
Another disadvantage is that McAfee uses a lot of pop-ups. For many consumers, this causes frustration, especially because pop-ups are not easy to remove.