Review: McAfee Total Protection 2007 internet security

Firewalls and Internet Security are a necessary, but often daunting prospect for the general computer user.

Most people are aware of the potential threats inherent to browsing using the internet and, these days, it’s essential to have a range of security and protection tools ready to defend your PC from infections and intruders.

McAfee’s Total Protection 2007 all-in-one suite includes ten such tools, so there’s plenty here to offer piece of mind, but are they straightforward enough to use?

Getting it onto a computer is quick and nicely customisable. Where other such applications don’t always offer a lot of control over how much (or how little) you install, McAfee’s setup routine allows you to choose exactly which elements to include.

For example, if only a firewall, or anti-spyware tools are needed, simply un-tick the utilities that aren't required. At this stage it's worth considering such options as installing the entire suite can cause some noticeable computer slowdown.

However, once up and running all of the tools are available through a single interface, akin to the popular ZoneAlarm suite. This includes Virus and Spyware protection, a system guard, firewall, pop-up blocker and handy additional utilities such as a task scheduler, de-fragmeter and McAfee's 'Quickclean' tools.

Sufficiently protected computers are symbolised by a large green tick at the top of the main interface. If a certain aspect of security needs tightening or updating, McAfee will often allow it to be solved automatically with a single click.

Simple adjustments to the most common tools such as the Firewall and Anti-virus are pretty straightforward, but in the case of more advanced tweaking, beginners may be daunted by the series of sub-menus that pop up deeper settings are delved into. A wizard based approach here would have made things more straightforward, but since the software is pretty adept at managing itself, this isn’t a major issue.

At around £60 it’s more expensive than other, more basic, security suites, but if you think you'll enough use out of the additional applications, it's well worth the price.