McAfee Free Antivirus for Windows PC

If you are looking for a free antivirus program for your Windows PC, then you may want to check out the newly released McAfee Free Antivirus.  McAfee Free Antivirus comes as an early version of what looks like a really simple Antivirus tool. This free antivirus software protects Windows PC’s from viruses, worms and trojans and soon more updates are likely to strengthen the functionality of the tool.

McAfee Free Antivirus for Windows

The installation process is easy and simple to understand. Following steps will guide you on how to install the antivirus program on your Windows PC.

Go to the beta.mcafee.com and click on the “Download Now” tab to arrive at the McAfee Consumer Products End User License Agreement page. After reading the agreement, click “I Agree”.

On clicking “I Agree” you will be able to download the installation set up file for  McAfee Free Antivirus. Once downloaded click on the .exe file and you will be see a pop-up window on your screen asking you to select the components to the installed.

You can choose to install complete or partial package based on your preference.  McAfee WebAdvisor provides basic online web browsing protection while McAfee free AV provides your PC with real-time antivirus protection.

On selecting the component or components, Windows starts downloading the chosen selection. As shown below, you can see the notification icon stating the progress of your download.

The total package size for WebAdvisor and free AntiVirus is 82 MB and the installation happens quite quickly. Once installed, go to Start menu and click onto the McAfee Free Antivirus icon. A status window will open providing the real-time status of the system.

McAfee Free Antivirus  equips your Windows PC with real-time antivirus protection, hence on clicking the Threat log you can see the current threats to your system. The antivirus tool also tells you about the unresolved issues that may require your attention.

In case you want to switch off Real-Time scanning and Access protection you can do so by clicking onto to the Settingstab and choosing the desired action.

McAfee Free Antivirus doesn’t really occupies much of your system resources to run and you will experience a smooth running of your Windows PC unlike what you experience with many other antivirus programs. The only lacking function which is missing in McAfee Free Antivirus is On-demand scanning. However, the presence of a greyed-out Scan Nowbutton suggests that we may see this feature in one of the coming updates.

Until then, if you would like to protect your Windows PC from real-time threat, then click here to download your copy of  McAfee Free Antivirus. It is currently in Beta stage and supports Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, but support for Windows 10 is expected to be added soon.

McAfee Free Antivirus doesn’t install alongside any other security programs. Hence in case you have other security tools on your Windows PC then you may have to uninstall them before you try out this tool. We recommend users to create a system restore point before trying out any application.