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My Sony VAIO Windows 7 system came with a copy of McAfee installed, but I never registered it. What puzzles me is, yes, I know it's out of date now, but the software still runs and protects me from visiting web pages containing risky behavior and so on and so forth. While running Windows, I get this window, which says: "Check status so as to be able to solve security problems and maintain the PC safe." and the blue button says "Check protection status".

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When I click on the blue "Check protection status" button I get the following window, which says, "!The computer being used is in danger" and then "McAfee protection against the most recent threats is no longer available. Activate protection now." The blue button reads "Configuration".

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Clicking on this button takes me to the following window, which says: "Sony recommends McAfee security", and "The PC comes with McAfee Security software preinstalled. To obtain protection against security threats, activate the software now.".

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OK, so here comes my question. I've never activated the software, and yet it has been working and still seems to be working (excapt possibly for new threats as the second message window states). If the software works out-of-the box without requiring activation, then what does product activation do in this case?

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    You might want to look for free alternatives that aren't bloated anyway. Generally if somebody knows about computers quite well, they won't use McAffee and if they are fixing somebody's computer, they'd not put McAffee on there 'cos it's bloated. So even if McAffee was free they wouldn't want it!
    – barlop
    Dec 2, 2014 at 15:16

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It should still work without registration. That's their way of getting information for promotions. After the trial period the software will go inactive and no longer function.

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  • Well, my trial period has expired two years ago but the software still works, although probably the software could fail to catch newer threats. Dec 2, 2014 at 16:11
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Your "protection" will diminish as you will be unable to receive updates. You may still be protected from some threats, but newer ones will be able to get in undetected.

If you must use this software, you will have to follow their requirements.

There are free alternatives which are easy to find on the net.

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  • The strange thing, though, is that the software also seems to protect me against relatively new malware, for instance when I visit some websites which appear to be relatively new, I get an alert and the page gets blocked by McAfee. Perhaps the page is new, but the malware found on it is old. Is this the reason for such behavior? Dec 20, 2014 at 18:44

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