We all love free stuff. (Costco samples, anyone?) However, when it comes to your family’s security, do free online protection tools offer the coverage you truly need?
Not always. In fact, they might invade the privacy you’re trying to protect.
Here’s why.
Free tools don’t offer the level of advanced protection that life on today’s internet needs. For starters, you’ll want malware and antivirus protection that’s as sophisticated as the threats they shut down. Ours includes AI technology and has for years now, which helps it shut down even the latest strains of malware as they hit the internet for the first time. We’re seeing plenty of that, as hackers have also turned to AI tools to code their malicious software.
Malware and antivirus protection protects your devices. Yet a comprehensive approach protects something else. You and your family.
What makes comprehensive online protection such a strong option
Comprehensive online protection looks after your family’s privacy and identity. That keeps you safe from prying eyes and things like fraud and identity theft. Today’s comprehensive protection offers more features than ever, and far more than you’ll find in a free, and so incomplete, offering.
Consider this short list of what comprehensive online protection like ours offers you and your family:
Scam Protection
Is that email, text, or message packing a scam link? Our scam protection lets you know before you click that link. It uses AI to sniff out bad links. And if you click or tap on one, no worries. It blocks links to malicious sites.
Web Protection
Like scam protection, our web protection sniffs out sketchy links while you browse. So say you stumble across a great-looking offer in a bed of search results. If it’s a link to a scam site, you’ll spot it. Also like scam protection, it blocks the site if you accidentally hit the link.
Transaction Monitoring
This helps you nip fraud in the bud. Based on the settings you provide, transaction monitoring keeps an eye out for unusual activity on your credit and debit cards. That same monitoring can extend to retirement, investment, and loan accounts as well. It can further notify you if someone tries to change the contact info on your bank accounts or take out a short-term loan in your name.
Credit Monitoring
This is an important thing to do in today’s password- and digital-driven world. Credit monitoring uncovers any inconsistencies or outright instances of fraud in your credit reports. Then it helps put you on the path to setting them straight. It further keeps an eye on your reports overall by providing you with notifications if anything changes in your history or score.
Social Privacy Manager
Our social privacy manager puts you in control of who sees what on social media. With it, you can secure your profiles the way you want. It helps you adjust more than 100 privacy settings across your social media accounts in just a few clicks. It offers recommendations as you go and makes sure your personal info is only visible to the people you want. You can even limit some of the ways that social media sites are allowed to use your data for greater peace of mind.
Personal Data Cleanup
This provides you with another powerful tool for protecting your privacy. Personal Data Cleanup removes your personal info from some of the sketchiest data broker sites out there. And they’ll sell those lines and lines of info about you to anyone. Hackers and spammers included. Personal Data Cleanup scans data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info. From there, it provides guidance for removing your data from those sites. Further, when part of our McAfee+ Advanced and Ultimate, it sends requests to remove your data automatically.
Password Manager
Scammers love weak or reused passwords. Even more so when they’re weak and reused. It offers them an easy avenue to force their way into people’s accounts. Our password manager creates and securely stores strong, unique passwords for you. That saves you the hassle of creating strong, unique passwords for your dozens and dozens of accounts. And helps protect you from fraud.
Identity Theft Coverage & Restoration
This provides you with extra assurance while you shop. Say the unfortunate happens to you and find yourself a victim of identity theft. Our coverage and restoration plan provides up to $2 million in lawyer fees and reimbursement for lawyer fees and stolen funds. Further, a licensed expert can help you repair your identity and credit. In all, this saves you money and your time if theft happens to you.
Why “free” online protection often comes at a cost
Say your online protection leaves gaps in your family’s safety, or that it uses less-effective methods and technologies. That exposes you to threats — threats can cost you time and money alike if one of those threats gets through.
One example, consider the online crimes reported to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In 2023, they fielded 5.4 million fraud reports. Of them, 2.6 million reported a loss for a total of $10 billion. The median loss was $500 across all reports. Of course, that’s only the median dollar amount. That number can climb much higher in individual cases.
Source: U.S. Federal Trade Commission
Without question, protection is prevention, which can spare you some significant financial losses. Not to mention the time and stress of restoring your credit and identity — and getting your money back.
Does free online protection software gather and share my data?
A “free” solution has to make its money somehow.
Free security solutions sometimes carry in-app advertising. More importantly, they might try to gather your user data to target ads or share it with others to make a profit. Also by advertising for premium products, the vendor indirectly admits that a free solution doesn’t provide enough security.
Further, these tools also offer little to no customer support, leaving users to handle any technical difficulties on their own. What’s more, most free security solutions are meant for use on only one device, whereas the average person owns several connected devices. And that’s certainly the case for many families.
Lastly, free solutions often limit a person’s online activity too. Many impose limits on which browser or email program the user can leverage, which can be inconvenient as many already have a preferred browser or email platform.
Why comprehensive online protection like McAfee’s matters
Free security products might provide the basics, but a comprehensive solution can protect you from a host of other risks — ones that could get in the way of enjoying your time online.
With comprehensive online protection in place, your family’s devices get protection from the latest threats in the ever-evolving security landscape. It keeps your devices safe. And it keeps you safe. With that, we hope you’ll give us a close look when you decide to upgrade to comprehensive protection.
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