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McAfee S-1

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Re: McAfee S-1

#51

Post by GordonS »

a5withtrrs wrote: post #37

I work in security and let me explain why McAfee products are so commonplace in corporate environments, even when there are vastly better alternatives out there. You want an AV product? Done You want a firewall product? Done You want central management? Done You want SIEM? Done etc etc Are any of their products amazing compared to the alternatives? No! Do they integrate seamlessly with each other? No! Are they cheape…

I work in the enterprise space, and Mcafee is the AV I see the most, and I believe largely for the "checkbox compliance" reasons you mentioned.

Personally, I find Mcafee AV to be absolutely fucking horrible. It installs something like 10 Windows services, and runs about 15 processes, and it always consumes by far more CPU than anything else on my system - and I run Docker, Rider, etc, so actually put the system through it's paces.

As an aside, I'm currently working with a company that was recently hit by a randsomware attack. They have responded by installing two endpoint protection (aka next gen AV) systems, another DLP system (Mcafee DLP is already installed), and a kill switch that let's them remotely destroy a machine. The end result is that a machine that was previously severely degraded by Mcafee, is now a machine that is at times unusable, and permanently sounds like an aircraft taking off. I don't think they're even done - I'm pretty sure they're going to install more crapware! This BTW is a company that sends about 10 internal spam mails a day, many of which are images or/and full of spelling mistakes, and some of which are asking you to download and install .exe files...

Re: McAfee S-1

#52

Post by syspec »

revel wrote: post #47

Got to wonder what the ratio will be for cocaine purchased per share. This IPO looks like it's headed for the Guinness Book of World Records, but I'd be curious to see how it stacks up with other IPOs. My bet is Uber is the overall #1, but if there's one individual who could singlehandedly shoot McAfee to the top, it's John McAffee. Less a man than a black hole for cocaine and prostitution, he's going to be pushing t…

But... he sold the company in 1994?

Re: McAfee S-1

#53

Post by GordonS »

nevi-me wrote: post #31
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

My work company (global company with offices in every region) uses them. An oldish version of the thing, likely mandated by head office in the US (I'm in Africa). The antivirus routinely uses 100% of the CPU for hours in a day. Our machines are so locked down with other products, one would wonder if the McAfee stuff is even useful. I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work. A few of us who question IT practises…

I've had the same experience of Mcafee - it makes you wonder how much their loathsome AV is contributing towards the company's power bill, and indeed global warming!

Re: McAfee S-1

#54

Post by eps »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #39
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

>Their original founder is outspoken against them Given the... ahem... curious life journey[0] of said founder, I think that takes away approximately zero credibility from the company he left in 1994. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues

He is a juicy character, but in this particular case his opinion matches that of the industry... which is to never touch anything McAfee-made even with a long pole.

Re: McAfee S-1

#56

Post by jmnicolas »

nevi-me wrote: post #46
irjustin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have tinnitus because of laptop fans at work. This seems unlikely, but on the off chance - ear plugs or concert ear plugs[0]? Concert earplugs ideally attenuate without changing the sound (not realistic, i know). Or a really good set of active noise cancelling headphones, in-ear monitors? I do question the laptop fans being the root cause of tinnitus since there'd have to be so so many... are you in a server room…

I'll try what you're suggesting. To give you a feel, one evening in the office when I turned off my laptop; colleagues stood up and asked what loud noise just turned off. From that day, we noticed that our laptops were loud because of the fans. Sometimes the noise blends in because of AC and generally noise office. But the pitch is very high, and it's because CPU @ 60+ because the McAfee web control thing is running…

This kind of noise on a laptop isn't normal. You may benefit from disassembling the laptop, removing any dust you find and reapplying thermal paste on the CPU.

There are countless tutorial on YT, even if you don't find your specific laptop model it will be close enough.

Re: McAfee S-1

#57

Post by wongarsu »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #39
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

>Their original founder is outspoken against them Given the... ahem... curious life journey[0] of said founder, I think that takes away approximately zero credibility from the company he left in 1994. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues

I see it more as "even the very ... adventurous McAfee sees the need to distance himself from his old company"

Re: McAfee S-1

#58

Post by Traster »

ksec wrote: post #50

Why on earth did Intel acquire McAfee in the first place is still a mystery to me. And I dont know how many times it has changed hand since, and now we are back to IPO. I actually think Oracle would be a better fit for McAfee given their enterprise nature.

The acquired them in the first place because they thought Security was the future. It was their big bet they could grow it synergistically to the core business while at the same time the market would wake up to security as important. The problem was that we moved to the cloud where cloud providers produced their own solutions, Microsoft woke up to security as well and it turns out security is really a part of the operating system- and Apple and Google figured that out on mobile. The nail in the coffin in my opinion was the fact that McAfee didn’t have the right security expertise- they had no influence on chip design, they were basically strong in corporate sales, which is something Intel already knew how to do and was useless on mobile. So it was just another case of Intel overpaying for something, letting it wilt in the shadow of x86 and then finally getting rid of it.

It’s not actually changed hands since Intel, Intel spun it out, retaining 49% ownership with TPG taking majority ownership with basically exactly thus plan - cut back the wasted investment Intel had made, make it lean and dump it on the stock market before anyone gets wise.

Re: McAfee S-1

#59

Post by hexbinencoded »

eps wrote: post #54
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Their original founder is outspoken against them Given the... ahem... curious life journey[0] of said founder, I think that takes away approximately zero credibility from the company he left in 1994. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues

He is a juicy character, but in this particular case his opinion matches that of the industry... which is to never touch anything McAfee-made even with a long pole.

An unhappy choice of words considering what he promised to do if BTC doesn't reach $1M by the end of the year. Somehow, I don't think he will bust out the jalapeño ketchup, relish, and spicy mustard, but will make some excuses. He's a media whore who always talks but never follows-through on anything.

Re: McAfee S-1

#60

Post by _fat_santa »

technion wrote: post #22
jjcm wrote: post #14

I really wonder who's going to buy in to McAfee. Their original founder is outspoken against them, their primary product is built into every OS these days, and they've been selling off their brand trust in exchange for revenue. Their revenue growth with their current strategy is purely optimized for short term growth with catastrophic long term outlook. They even say they don't have a plan for what to do with their m…

Just to expand on this, the "McAfee SECURE" logo was sold to PathDefender (not TrustedSite) and all those McAfee logos you see on websites aren't operated by McAfee any more.

Every time I find one of those "McAfee SECURE" logos I cringe because they are so tacky. Like please tell me exactly how MacAfee is keeping me safe on this website.
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