McAfee announced today an all-in-one security subscription service codenamed Falcon. Falcon will contain all major security suite components as well as PC backup and tune-up tools. It"s essentially a competitor to Microsoft"s Windows OneCare, expected soon, and Symantec"s Genesis (also a codename), due out this fall. In fact, with a beta due out in a few weeks and an expected summer launch, McAfee may beat Symantec out of the gate.
"We know from our research and relationship with millions of consumers that PC security is confusing and complex to them," said Marc Solomon, Director of Product Management, McAfee Consumer. "With the launch of "Falcon" this summer, we have integrated into our award-winning products powerful, yet easy to use protection that addresses both existing and emerging threats. For the consumer, we not only continue to stop the bad guys in their tracks but we will even be able sniff out and stop suspicious activity. "Falcon" builds upon McAfee"s leadership in making great security and protection nearly transparent to the user and takes consumer security to an entirely new level."
For desktop PC users, Falcon is essentially the upgrade to McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006. The demo of Falcon that I saw addressed a few complaints we had with the excellent-performing 2006 suite, which we reviewed in All-in-One Security. Falcon will work with non-Internet Explorer browsers like Firefox and has a better-designed interface with easy access to advanced options. Other improvements: protection against rootkits, anti-phishing heuristics, detection of malware within images, scanning of USB devices such as thumb drives, home-network protection, and automated local backup.