Coyote Tracks

Back in 2005, I was a “geek for hire” and did a lot of general troubleshooting for end-users. Including malware removal and general PC tune-ups. One client wanted me to install some software, including McAfee’s main end-user product at the time — I don’t recall the name.

I do recall, however, that my head nearly exploded when I found that the product required the user to turn on ActiveX… and not even restrict it to local execution only! I informed the client (with as little ranting as I could) that this was an extremely bad idea, and strongly advised that he get a different security software suite, and ditch the McAfee product as quickly as he could.

It seems that McAfee has not improved their security practices since then. People are saying that a security company should know better. I agree, but I’m not all that surprised; this just looks like more of the same stuff I saw from them back in ’05.