Intel Dropping McAfee Branding
The software is expected to be called Intel Security.
During CES 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that the company plans to phase out the McAfee brand. The announcement arrives after McAfee Chief Marketing Officer Penny Baldwin said last month that the company would "see massive change" in "packaging and names."
According to reports, the security firm will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary, and work alongside Intel employees who are currently working on security activities under the new "Intel Security" brand name. Only the red and white shield logo will remain.
"I've been begging them to drop the brand or fix the product," McAfee said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
John McAfee founded McAfee Associates in 1987, and then resigned from the company in 1994 with around $100 million in cash. He stayed in the spotlight for years to come with his "bored millionaire antics," but then made major headlines in 2012 when he went on the run after his neighbor in Belize was found shot in the back of his head.
After that whole escapade, McAfee was jailed in Guatemala and then deported to Miami after faking a heart attack. The latest antic is a video of McAfee reading letters from annoyed McAfee software users. The language is graphic, and the ladies are scantily clad. There's also plenty of drug use, foot licking and guns. Wahoo.
"Something went wrong. Fifteen years ago I had some beautiful software, and they took it over. I don't know what they did," he states. He then talks about his tax consultant, and whips out a gun. Overall, the comments merely echo his distaste for the association that links him to the antivirus software. He's also tired of getting hate mail regarding said software.
"I really am elated beyond description," he told CNN Money. "Everyone thinks I've written the worst software in the world. But I've had nothing to do with that company for 20 years."
The video seemingly tries to get under Intel's skin enough so that the chip maker gives up and changes the name. Chief Technology Officer Michael Fey told Reuters that the company is not concerned about the video because most customers know that John McAfee hasn't worked for the company in years. Yet Fey said it will be a relief once the association is severed, and the company could finally ignore his zany antics.
"As an employee I am happy to stop having to answer that," Fey said.

I use avira and I recommend it. Avast! is good. Sometimes. For some people... Avira has really surprised me though. I used ESET NOD32 up to a year ago.
Sounds like you get all of your information from PCMag....who appears to get paid for their antivirus reviews. Regardless of how poorly Norton does in every lab test, PCMag reviews seem to paint them as the most capable product on the market, followed by Webroot (who also does very poorly in lab tests). McAfee, as reviewed by AV-Comparatives, isn't nearly as bad as you make them out to be. AVG has a lower detection rate, a higher false-positive rate and a lower removal rate yet it's among the most recommended antivirus apps on this site.
Antivirus testing has become a joke. You can read lab results from the major test labs (VirusBulletin, WestCoast Labs, AV-Test, AV-Comparatives) and get a pretty good idea of how the software does under ideal conditions. You can read the (paid for) reviews over at PCMag. You can read the factually incorrect "reviews" that get posted here every so often. You can read user reviews..... BUT, at the end of the day, the software will all still fail miserably in real-world usage.
Recently (Dec 2013) I used Kaspersky to scan a harddrive. After nearly 3 hours of scanning, Kaspersky reported the harddrive as being clean. Approximately 30minutes later, my desktop was trashed by viruses that Kaspersky missed. I plugged that same harddrive into a laptop running Avast Internet Security 2014, which immediately started popping up warnings about infections. In total, that harddrive contained over 1000 different viruses that Kaspersky (one of the top rated Antivirus solutions on the market) completely missed. I should also pointed out that BitDefender missed all of these viruses as well. In the case of all 3 antivirus solutions, they were intentionally set to be as aggressive as possible and the 2 top rated, paid solutions completely failed in every sense of the word. Based on my own experience, and my research over the last week, I'm fairly confident that most (if not all) "professional" reviews/certifications are bought and paid for.
Still, people make too big of a deal about viruses. You'll catch one eventually. Its not the end of the world. Just back up important files and don't do stupid stuff like downloading pornographic RPGs on the same computer you do your online banking.