When I bought my present computer from Dell, it came with McAfee Security Center pre-installed. The program was due to expire 90 days later. The obvious thing to do was to renew the subscription and continue to benefit from the protection that the program afforded. To do this I had to register online with my credit card details.
Each year since, McAfee informed me that my subscription had been renewed. For this year the renewal is a penny short of £50 which is actually more than you would pay for a new installation of the program especially if you bought it from the American site with a 40% discount.
I understand that keeping the program up-to-date is an expensive process but surely it doesn't cost so much.
So enough is enough. I went onto the Customer Service site of McAfee to cancel the payment. Lo and behold you can't do this by simply un-ticking a box; you have to speak to someone on the phone, chat with a rep online or send an email. Since I didn't want someone trying to talk me out of my decision, I sent an email. I'll now have to wait for a response which could take two days.
Once McAfee have confirmed my cancellation and when the current subscription has run out, I'll uninstall the program which will require two stages including running an uninstall program which I can only download once I've completed the first step.
It should come as no surprise that buying, installing and subscribing to the program is a much simpler operation than cancelling and uninstalling it.
Of course I have no intention of leaving my computer open to the Internet without protection so I am considering Avira AntiVir Premium which is much more affordable at 19.95 euros. The company do three versions; a basic free version, the Premium edition and the Premium Security Suite version at 39.95€. The other alternative I'm considering is Avast Home Edition which is again free. Whichever I choose, I will enjoy protection at a price much lower than McAfee want to charge me.
Result: I've had an email from McAfee telling me that my subscription has now been cancelled and that my credit card will be reimbursed. Checking on Ebay, I could buy a copy of the software from McAfee in the UK for half the price of the renewal. Now that is what I call a nonsense.
1 comment:
I've heard good things about Avast. I've also used FreeAVG pretty successfully in the past. Such a shame that we have to shackle ourselves with these things.
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