Back in the day, I was testing and reviewing Internet security suites for Maximum PCs. Back then, I witnessed the efforts of the major AV manufacturers to optimize their software so that it would not affect PC performance too much. It worked for Norton, but not so much for McAfee. However, one independent testing lab found that McAfee was one of the AV programs that did the least harm to performance among the modest group evaluated.

AV-Comparatives collected 17 different security solutions, including full-fledged Internet security suites and regular antivirus programs (including free ones). They then conducted a series of performance tests, including copying files, archiving and unarchiving files, installing and uninstalling applications, launching programs, downloading files, browsing websites, and running PCMark 10.

The tests were performed on a PC considered "low-end" by AV-Comparatives with an Intel Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and an unspecified SSD.

"Performance testing was performed on a clean Windows 10 1909 64-bit system (English) and installed consumer security software (default configuration). Testing was performed with an active Internet connection to account for the real-world impact of cloud services/features," AV-Comparatives explained.

Each program received one of four rankings in each category except PCMark 10: slow, normal, fast, and very fast. Surprisingly (and truly shocking), McAfee ranked "Very Fast" in each round of testing and scored relatively high in PCMark 10.

Several other products were close to winning all the way, but only three cleared the Very Fast bar in each category. The other two included K7 Total Internet Security and Kaspersky Internet Security.

Overall, McAfee was third behind K7 and Kaspersky, as were Bitdefender Internet Security, ESET Internet Security, F-Secure SAFE, Panda Free Antivirus, and VIPRE Advanced Security, All three received the lab's highest Advanced+ award.

These results convinced me to revisit McAfee as time permits. When I was doing my previous AV roundup, AV-Comparatives was one of the labs I used to examine the data as well as run my own tests. In other words, I trust the results of this lab.

Keep in mind that this latest test only looked at the performance impact of the AV programs, not the effectiveness of each program in detecting or removing malware or the features offered. However, McAfee Gamer Security is listed as one of the best antiviruses for PC gaming. This is presumably based on the same AV engine as the Internet Security suite. While I've been away from testing AV software, McAfee seems to have turned a corner.