McAfee Security: Privacy & VPN Reviews

by RewindingKarma

I paid in advance an entire year last May 2021. Then due to a recent upgrade I cannot use anymore. The upgrade says I only have 250mps I can use each month, but doesn’t start at zero for next month and blocks use. I cannot get a hold of anyone in customer service as line is always busy. My subscription shows on my phone, but there is no reference number, I am unable to use either site now. I want a refund for the 6 months I haven’t been able to use. In my subscriptions, states I can cancel and upgrade early and they will provide a refund, not sure if I can trust them as unable to verify this. This is also known as bait and switch, a tactic that is illegal to use. I am frustrated that businesses think they can trick people like this
They send me a reply and as I stated “bait and switch”, only will give me a refund when I sign up again for a full year. They then will give me a refund where the time frame overlaps which is not allowing me to cancel my current subscription without continuing again. The service has not worked for almost 2 months now, I don’t want to commit to another year. I want a refund back 2 months to the end of my existing subscription. You still cannot reach anyone in their customer service department. This is exactly what Comcast / Xfinity did also.
PLEASE REFUND AND CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION!

by Hastings Warrior

I shopped many similar programs and wanted a familiar brand name. Purchased this with a Yearly Subscription and it must be set up as an Automatic Renewal. Installed on one of our five iOS devices. When I started to set it up on my wife’s phone, McAfeeSecurity considered it as a SEPARATE (New) account and if I had continued the setup, it would have charged me AGAIN for a full years subscription. I contacted India and had two difficult conversations with the so-called “Customer Service” Department. I requested a refund due to McAfeeSecurity not being able to install on multiple “Family Sharing” iOS devices. I was “educated” regarding McAfee’s Refund Policy inasmuch as one of the loopholes in the policy is a statement that a “refund “depends on “where” the product was purchased”. So, unless you purchase this product (app) directly from McAfee, you will NOT be able to obtain a refund from them. And, pardon my ignorance, but I don’t know how or if Apple gives a refund for apps sold to a third party. Because, as you’re probably aware, the Seller and not Apple, gets paid-Apple only charges a fee for the ability to use Apple’s store. I will use McAfeeSecurity on my device until such time next year when the small window opens for me to cancel it. I will install Norton’s app on the rest of my devices!

by JeffBaurcuda

I have three McCaffrey now it won't even show anything that I'm typing because it's gonna be a bad review free through AT&T service online that is the weakest service any American has gift course it's full price is those with a DSL line and one 100th of the band with this is not a free country and that is called discrimination where your government and all of your applications in life need to be online do you have a service that does not work and is weak to hackers constantly getting pet and McGaffey has the gall to say would you like to buy us again and again and again after I check in I've already have that through AT&T because AT&T service show horribly terrible I paid for twice and it still coming back they won't even respond so who's the virus this is not helping there's nothing that they have done to prevent any hackers in fact I'll probably get hacked twice as much just for giving a review what they really do
I have

by Luckieme1

I have been round and round with a couple people at your company to attempt to cancel services within the 7 day trial to no success! You keep telling me you have no way of cancelling and that I have to go through Apple! RIDICULOUS! My phone has an unsupported IOS upgrade and won’t let me in! Therefore I have cancelled my cc to stop any charges and you can cancel my services on your end! What an asinine way to do business! My phone was hacked and all your scans kept telling me all is fine! Worthless app in my opinion!

Still have not been able to cancel your app! You need to cancel this ineffective security app on your end as I am unable to do it through McAfeeSecurity Store! Can’t sign in on App Store or your sight! Well within the 7 day trial period! My cc has been cancelled on my end ! You need to cancel on your end to end this nightmare!

WORTHLESS APP THAT FINDS NOTHING WRONG AND I KNOW MY PHONE WAS HACKED BUT YOUR APP KEPT TELLING ME ALL IS OK! Do your job and cancel! You won’t get any money from me for this useless app!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by Josh McClintock

VPN is still not operational. It’s like there is a dummy switch installed just to make the user feel better while it’s there to toggle their inability to maintain McAfeeSecurity with a working VPN feature. Last big update had a feature that if the VPN was turned on, it would fail to load almost any website and the VPN would turn itself back on and you would know that had resumes running because your webpages would not load. The contact is feedback feature is the biggest joke. You type out everything you want, just to receive an email asking you to go to a poorly designed loop of a series of click here click here click her trying to share the issue so that it could be resolved. I’m done trying. I’ve basically have had a poor excuse of an app that I paid a yearly subscription for and the only thing I’ve gotten out of it is the fact that I can acknowledge that I have wasted my money.

After a nice email back I followed instructions and emailed a provided email address with information so they could get ahold of me and I have not heard a response back in almost a week.

by Uber Pool Hater

I know media vault might not be the main feature of McAfeeSecurity, but it’s currently poorly designed and difficult to use. When importing photos, if you want to choose recent photos, you have to choose the “Recent” folder which contains all photos in the phone. This takes forever to load, since McAfeeSecurity seems to load all photos in the phone at once, when you really just want it to load the most recent few. As a result, to import photos into McAfeeSecurity , you need to create a separate folder of the photos you are trying to import, then open that new folder in McAfeeSecurity so McAfeeSecurity only loads the photos you are trying to import. The idea itself is great, a simple local media vault with no useless and potentially risky features such as cloud syncing. Most of the dedicated media vault apps are offered by random individual developers and can hardly be trusted. Thus a trusted name like McAfee is uniquely positioned to implement this simple feature, and it’s sad that the feature right now is so poorly executed. Looking forward to improvements!

by Jessicabrooksssss

First, the majority of websites I try to access, simply for online shopping, won’t even work at all unless I turn VPN off. How is it protecting anything if I can’t use the internet while it is on. It also logs me out on its own. Websites have received my actual location, I started getting scam calls from Canada now, after visiting a Canadian website for shopping. Also, often when the VPN is on, my device will buffer for ages. If I turn it off, internet starts working again.

Another annoying thing: Since this new upgrade of December 2021, you can no longer choose which server to connect to??? That was supposed to be one of the “perks” of having a VPN. I’m honestly not convinced this whole internet/device security app is doing anything at all. I would love to know if there is even one pro to paying for this thing? If it is not allowing cookies to be tracked/saved then I can’t even access most websites. Please fix this. How can you charge your customers for a service that can’t even be used the majority of the time?

by Beekeeper911

I received the following alert from the McAfee App, that my Wi-Fi was under threat & I should disconnect - “1 threat found. Scan complete. [(MY WI-FI NAME)] - Your personal info is at risk, Disconnect Now!” I was uncomfortable about this message using my Wi-Fi name in a pop up, so I called McAfee & they were unaware of why this message was sent. That Representative told me that it was a Phishing attempt & to disregard the ‘email’! She sent me to Technical Support, when I explained that this alert came from McAfeeSecurity . Tech Support was also unaware of this message, but after speaking to someone, ran me through disconnecting & reconnecting my iPhone from the Wi-Fi. As I have not had Wi-Fi trouble, there was no reconnect issue. But then, the tech told me that my PASSWORD was weak (it is very strong) & that I should change it. This felt fishy to me. I tried to tell the McAfee Tech that they should check to make sure THEIR APP hadn’t been hacked. I did not feel that they understood.
I then called AppleCare to report this. AppleCare does not have an avenue to contact developers about such issues. I am hoping that McAfee will read this review and check their system. I am trying to be helpful here, and I see that someone actually responded to a previous concern.

by C00chieSlay3r9000

Very good app for saving things to be protected. But there are a few weird things with McAfeeSecurity. 1) The alarm is disturbing. You guys could’ve changed it to something else than a child screaming. Maybe a high-pitched alarm sound or a option where you can choose one. 2) Media vault is annoying. It says you have to delete every single photo on your device to import photos. It’s annoying for people who like to keep images (like me), just make it optional (like saying “Keep and Import” or “Delete and Import”). Another thing about it is that there is a notification that’s just permanently there saying to delete photos if you denied access. You cannot get rid of it until you delete your photos. (Extra Idea) make a password storage (like media storage) but it has passwords instead (maybe add a option to import from another service like dashlane?). Great app overall but should fix their app a little more.

by Jbabyvalentino

Great app, but I am experiencing issues. I have an iPhone 11 and have the latest version of iOS installed. I am having issues with the McAfee VPN/Web Guard and my Apple CarPlay radio. While everything works fine with the radio (connected via USB), I cannot use Siri if the VPN/Web Guard feature is on. It is extremely inconvenient to have to turn on and turn off the VPN. Especially when I enter a public place where I have previously connected to WiFi and my phone auto-connects to the WiFi connection. An example of my main issue would be something like this: I am driving in my vehicle and I decide to use Siri with the voice control button in my 2020 Kia. I say, “Please call Dad.” Siri will show on my CarPlay radio that it is trying to process my request and then states that, “Siri requires an internet connection.” I am using my Sprint 4G data the entire time while I am driving and the VPN is on. If I turn it off, no problems. I enjoy McAfeeSecurity and I am paying $9.99 monthly for it. I would hate to search for other alternatives. Could you please tell me if you know anyways I can resolve this issue? And if not, could McAfee possibly look into fixing this? I’ve searched online and I have seen that many others are experiencing the same problem. Thank you!

by PeakA&Pals

McAfeeSecurity is perfect. I originally used McAfee to keep my computer safe from malware and it worked quite well. Then I heard of McAfeeSecurity. My oh my was it good. It had a safe place for my precious photos, with password lock. And it had safe web, which is a very nice touch. I use McAfeeSecurity alongside an adblocker (I use Adguard) to keep my mobile browsing ad free and safe. By the way, you can link your phone to a pre-existing McAfee subscription like the one I used for my PC so you don’t have to buy several of them to protect your devices. I do have a minor complaint though, even though McAfee has a very user-friendly interface, it lacks the ability to have more advance options to specifically target certain things like malware. Plus McAfeeSecurity can be a little buggy. Otherwise great app, worth your time. P.S. I am 14 years old. Thanks for reading this. Now get off your phone and go outside!

by G0nzu

Some dude tried to trick me into clicking a viruses link, but he himself literally spoiled his own trick. He told me “it might say it’s a virus, but don’t worry.” It kinda made me laugh a bit. I didn’t click on the link (because I already knew it was a virus in the beginning) , but i was still curious if I had a virus on me. I quickly downloaded McAfeeSecurity, and it says I’m safe, but I have a feeling it’s not. I used to download virus protection apps and every result would come out differently. It would scan, safe, then I scan again, boom there’s a problem out of nowhere and I have to pay the monthly fee in order to see what is the problem. I figured it was just a scam or fake protection, so I deleted it and never really trusted a virus protection app since. McAfeeSecurity seem legit, but my only concern is if it genuinely helps you scan for viruses for free and tries to not pull some tricks so that you pay first. I know the developer is gonna say “this is safe,” but I don’t know. Hopefully I can trust this company with my stuff.

by Skulivan

I really like the McAfee Security however, there are some very annoying issues:
1) when protecting more than one device
a) had to install several times on each device to get that device to show up in my list of protected devices. Also, the labels aren’t the same as the names I gave them
2) Account homepage still lists duplicate devices when you get a new subscription-still haven’t found a way to delete the devices from expired/previous subscriptions
Overall, the actual product is the best in my opinion. Although it takes a bit of finesse to get things organized so you really know your devices are protected using the exact same subscription and its parameters. McAfee needs to streamline this process and let people know to install the software on your Pc FIRST. Then from that Pc, send msgs to your other devices. This way all/everything is in the same place to be administered. If you do not do it this way, it’s all confusing and your list of protected devices won’t be right.

by Ydoumkmedothis

Was using the free version was very happy then all of a sudden it switched to a pay I am a senior and I loved the free one worked for what I needed limited income here so you would of got a 4 or 5 for the free one but when you want me to pay then you loose points

I got a reply from McAfee because they upgraded there vpn the free edition is no longer available I am sad because it was working fine I upped my rating to a 3 star because at least they answered my question. I am sorry to say that I won’t be using there product because its not because I don’t want to it’s just a budget scenario because I have to decide medications or a VPN medications win when you are battling a non curable cancer that they can give you treatments to help control so much for the free edition I was very happy with. I just want to say thank you for your free edition and sorry that I cannot rate the new edition

by Katintransit

This is a great app to have, since I am always on the internet, and using my Bluetooth headphones for study. The only issue I have is that McAfeeSecurity can stop protecting at any given time of the day. If I have safe web and WiFi protection on, they should stay on. I shouldn't have to go back into McAfeeSecurity to check and see if both are green. It has become a bit daunting to keep having to go back and check and see if my app is still
Protecting me when I had already checked the boxes to do so. McAfeeSecurity can throw itself out of protecting you, leaving you unprotected for a period of time until you go back and check. I think you need to fix that bug. If we click on each feature to protect us, it should stay that way all day, unless we go in and uncheck it ourselves.
Yesterday I had my Bluetooth, and I had all the protection on, and when I went back to check my Bluetooth, someone had come onto my Bluetooth as another device, trying to get access. That is not supposed to happen if I'm protected. When I went back
To McAfeeSecurity , which was protecting me prior, it had shut my protection off. Please fix this bug. Other than that complaint it's a good app, but it needs fine tuning. Thank you

by Carrissa Rowland

Keep in mind that McAfeeSecurity is NOT a VPN. But it will still keep your security. What it does is it scans your phone/tablet etc for anything that can be dangerous for a virus and such. I have not had any issues with it and it scans your device often reminding you if anything has happened. And I think that McAfeeSecurity is a little TO protective because I had it scan once and it told me that I needed to update my phone to the latest version for “the new security”. While that is not really a complaint it is just saying that McAfeeSecurity while tell you if anything even resembles a virus or anything. So yeah, great app!

by Wertmanwife

I know its hard to believe spending so much on a security software system is worth it, but it is. I can download this onto any device from my phones, tablets, and computers. My four year old son lost my tablet since I let him use it and we thought it was irretrievable but than I remembered this. Mind you we haven’t seen it for two days straight and checked its location and activated an alarm. The alarm turns the device on, even if it’s off, and it turns the volume up even if its down. We found it. Plus if we didn’t find it I was able to wipe the device from where I was at on my couch. It does so much more than just provide virus security, it provides theft security, and protects me when I surf the web using public internet. In all I feel so safe.

by Kerrickmc

In this day and age I must have protection for my phone that cost over well over $1,000 dollars and I use more as a total communication and information and entertainment portal than just as a “phone”. The constant threat of apps that are great to use but are in existence only to gather information off of my phone or to perform other nefarious acts through access to my phone and basically to me and my information is exhausting. To even think I could begin to address myself is ridiculous and would see me and most people just running away and starting to watch Netflix or TikTok to just forget about or distract myself from thinking about. I delegate at work to specialists. I know Mcafee from the years and years they have protected my computers. I choose to have the best protection on my great iPhone. 5 star protection from a 5 star company in this highly dangerous age. Thank you Mcafee

by WHHJR

This is a well designed app that has a nice look and feel to it, easy to navigate and enough features to make it a worthwhile application to have on your iPhone. No advertising and just an overall low maintenance app that you will forget is installed on your phone until you need it. Some handy features like the Vault where you can “hide” pictures, documents or phone numbers. It does not offer a backup for your phone but does have the ability to encrypt the file you would include in a backup, a feature where it can track a lost iPhone, sound an alarm to help you locate a lost misplaced phone and a neat feature where once the phone battery is critically low, McAfeeSecurity sends up to the McAfee Website a location so that way if the battery does die and you have misplaced your iPhone then it could potentially have the last location you may have left the phone. Best of all its free

by Cap_Mag

I don’t usually write reviews, but I felt compelled to give my approval for McAfee after having issues with malware and viruses on my company laptop. Working remotely opened my laptop to threats I hadn’t paid much attention to before. I’m not certain how it happened, but going to my company’s website somehow triggered an attack and prompted me to download a fishy looking mock-up of the “new browser” (misspellings was the first red flag). I didn’t proceed, but trying to back out of the browser even was problematic. Thanks to my renewal of the McAfee Anti-virus and Protection Software, all I had to do was initiate a scan and it quarantined and removed the threat within 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the company website is still doing the same problematic prompting and will automatically trigger the process all over again and I have to run the scan again, but I believe that has something to do with the web domain more than with my McAfee protected system.

by Maxwell Jk

I’ve now visited multiple antivirus sites online. McAfeeSecurity has popped up with multiple great reviews so I was hoping that it would work. I have received notifications of over 30 virus threats on my phone, and when I scanned my phone it stated that I had no threats to worry about except for the fact that I don’t have a passcode to my phone. I’ve searched for many not to expensive sites to help me out, do to my current money situation. And I was really hoping this one would work but it didn’t. I feel that if you are going to be put up onto antivirus protection sites you need to actually have a working app honestly i need to find a way to get rid of these viruses without going to get a new memory card. I had to rate it to put up my thoughts but I only give it a half star because it at least scanned the fact that I didn’t have a passcode.I hope you work on your app enough to help more people but I am not very pleased with my experience. Thank you for reading this I wish you and McAfeeSecurity luck.

by Osugrad85

I’ve been using McAfee security protection on my home computers for years as it was a provided feature through my ISP. When I got an iPad I was happy that it too was covered by the account I had created related to McAfee’s security protection that was part of my ISP service. BUT, with the latest update of McAfeeSecurity, I lost the most important feature ... the VPN. Instead of having coverage through the McAfee security feature provided through my ISP, it looks like McAfee wants me to subscribe separately from my ISP to receive this feature. In fact, when I try to log in to McAfeeSecurity , it accepts my log in information and even says that I have a license available. BUT, when I select that available license, the system responds by saying that my subscription has expired and I need to renew it. Definitely a money grab by McAfee and a wonderful way for them to lose their loyal customer base.

by Shadysgirl66

I downloaded McAfeeSecurity a week ago. It included with the standard free package the safe web VPN. The VPN configured and McAfeeSecurity showed I had SAFE WEB and the Ad blocking. Today I downloaded the update. Lost the VPN PROTECTION that went to PREMIUM PAY AND AD BLOCKING TO PREMIUM PAY. LOST THE FREE WIFI GUARD. MUST ALSO PREMIUM PAY FOR THAT NOW. Funny thing is it was not showing in my app updates as a Normal app would for an update. The only reason I saw the supposed update was I went to McAfeeSecurity Store to read about a specific feature since once you have the original app downloaded all info in your settings area is minimal and vague. It’s a waste. I believe I was scammed with the original FALSE FREE PROTECTION for a week. It’s a worthless app when they took the 2 above protections away. Really McAfee I expected better of you. Have used your stuff for years. Going to delete most likely and go back to free FYDE. THEIR free protection is FREE and doesn’t change to zero after a week.

by Bcooper767

McAfeeSecurity is great for backing up pics and contacts but that is it. It does not include virus or malware or browsing protection for your phone. I even have the top McAfee software for multiple devices. Bought it so my I phone 7 would be protected. But it does only back up which iCloud already does I also have MS One Drive so it is useless to have on my phone. I was very disappointed that it does not provide antivirus or malware protection for my phone. McAfee should state that upfront.i upgrade to 2 stars because it now will check to see if WiFi you are using using is safe but still now virus or malware check for I phone7 why can’t McAfee work a deal with apple? The advertise that McAfee can be use to protect up to 10 devices including IOS but that is not true.

by Tw2icer

Security is one of the upmost important things to me, and I’m sure to a lot of you too! Now Mcafee has a mobile security app for devices. I personally was excited for McAfeeSecurity. After downloading and registering I scanned my phone. It was easy and a little too quick but who doesn’t like fast and efficient?! Makes me wonder if I even needed it for my iPhone. One of the worlds greatest phones, My iPhone was fine before the install and I really don’t see how it would work on a phone with a real issue. McAfeeSecurity is really limited on what it does. It contains 4 different scans that are great but what about scanning apps and programs and emails? It doesn’t really tell me what it really scans other then the 4 main options on the dashboard. So with or without I believe my iPhone will be just fine. I hope Mcafee develops McAfeeSecurity more and can show you how McAfeeSecurity works when your phone is under a real threat.

by Geo Chicago

I like that it’s from a reputable name that’s been around. I’ve had other pic lock apps that disappeared and left their app unsupported. I also love that McAfeeSecurity encrypts your locked photo on your phone only - so there is no back up on the cloud or their servers etc. It’s also great that you can turn off Face ID for locked pics and just use a pin. Also great that it does video locks too. And finally I like that it tells you with an alert of a private pic is still in your regular iPhone photos.

My upgrade suggestion is to allow users to create folders. It’s hard to see what pics you have there if you can’t organize them the way you want it.

by Ted E Bear In October Outside

Hi. I bumped your rating up to 4 stars because you now include WiFi VPN in your mobile app. As for the 5th star I knocked off, that is because your VPN doesn’t seem to work with outlook mail from Microsoft. I get a connection issue reaching outlook mail servers and I have to disconnect the vpn services. Also it would be very nice to also use not only a VPN but a Proxy url as well that users could install in the settings app in the WiFi to block certain things as well as create a 1st line of defense against ads. I would also like to see you guys issue a certificate that would then be able to be a profile on the end user as well as have your safe web vpn be adjusted with a feature you had a few years back that allowed users to see and identify the bad websites in real time by the use of a green circled check mark or a red circled Do NoT Enter sign next to each link. I really liked that feature. It’s too bad that was taken away. I will bump back up to 5 stars if these are implemented. I would also like to see a way users could filter out websites based on topic or issue with the Adblock VPN or the SafeWeb VPN or a proxy or certificate for each subject people might want to block that would communicate with the VPN for safe web.

by Sarbear.A

Hi so I have had McAfeeSecurity for a wile now and it seems to work well but I think that the 4 things it’s supposed to protect you from should all be free and I understand not EVERY thing can be free but some people may not have money for the protection they need.... besides that I accidentally clicked on a virus app and did not know and quickly got off I got on McAfeeSecurity and checked if I was ok but resized it only does WiFi and contacts also pics the rest you have to pay... all I’m requesting is that you could make all four free because now I’m worried that I have a virus. Y’all are the only app that I trust to help me all the others are fake .

by Cf67polv5

App Settings have no background scan control. After executing an on demand scan there is, in my opinion no reason for additional background scans especially when the device hasn’t even been in use. If it had background scan controls it would be appreciated. I shut off background activity in iOS and scanner settings but it runs background scans anyway. A waste of battery charge. Also there seems to be no way to request a manual. virus signature update. If it had these capabilities I’d give it 5 stars but without some user control I can only give it 2.

by BigD12356

All my devices got hacked with bad@$$ mean worm trojanspysomeware after update. I purchased mcafee aftet i got hit cuz microbrains support advised me only use defender...mcafee couldn’t find it after and remove it with their scanners but i have no blame for them, after I started using security no malware at all! Before hand all my accounts from fb to Experian were taken over. To people out there over 40, take these kids seriously when they tell ya passwords are weak, but strong ones get taken too. Pay the year, save 20 hours or more of your time! Do it