Preview: McAfee Total Protection 2007

McAfee has launched its new computer protection suite, which should already be on the retail shelves.

The suite has followed the industry trend of including multiple programs to individually address the online threats that consumers face. In addition to virus scanning, Total Protection 2007 includes a spyware blocker, an anti-rootkit tool, an Internet filter that analyses images and text, an anti-phishing feature and incremental backup functionality.

New to the suite is support for Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, in the form of a safety rating system called Site Advisor. This adds safety ratings to web sites in the form of green ticks or red crosses based on testing and reports from McAfee and the hackerwatch.org community.

The download manager has evolved into a standalone application, and no longer relies on ActiveX. It updates all the components of the suite, which are integrated from within the UI. This has been refreshed to reflect the tighter cross-program links.

To address the increasing numbers of computers in home networks, the package is available in a multiple user license pack. The single user version retails for $129.95 and the three user version retails for $159.95. Both packages provide updates for one year, after which the services will still work, but definitions will not be updated.

Total Protection 2007 is not Vista compatible, as Microsoft is still holding the details of the operating system close to its chest. According to current projections, it is unlikely that this will affect users as the one year license will cover the interim between installation and Vista’s release.