McAfee Total Protection (discontinued) vs. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Sophos Intercept X

I think McAfee is great to have whether it's for work or for personal use. While it has some drawbacks, I like the peace of mind of feeling safe when I'm browsing the web/email, especially when my computer has sensitive/confidential information, knowing that McAfee will immediately detect any threats. The UI is extremely easy to navigate, which makes it easy for users regardless of how tech-savvy they are.

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to deployed across the entire organization. Having a cloud based solution with a single pane of glass to manage all assets is a real no-brainer. Being able to receive immediate alerts when suspicious activity occurs is extremely helpful in keeping risks at a minimum. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint management is also smart enough to not send several alerts when an attack could be hitting multiple targets within a certain time frame or when it's the same attack multiple times. However, be prepared to click through multiple pages all over the site to figure out what happened when an attack occurs.

Incentivized

To be frank, this product is fairly expensive. So I would recommend this to companies that are mid-sized or larger to condone the cost of the purchase. It does save me a significant amount of time in my day - being able to glance at the dashboard and see if there are any outstanding issues that require my attention, as not much digging must be done to accomplish this. So for our company, with a short-staffed IT department, it's incredibly helpful to us. We also qualify for Educational pricing which brings the cost down - which helps tremendously

Incentivized

• Excellent protection of all internet connected assets on our VPN.
• Constant updates of needed security patches that ensure our network and systems are protected from current and emerging/potential threats.
• Prompt and reliable customer service that provides needed answers and expertise in a crisis.
• Strategic whitepapers on emerging cyber threats and McAfee solutions to resolve them before they become a problem for my team or our clients.

Incentivized

• One, it's crazy lightweight, so compared to some of the competitors that we also have used with our security services, it's really lightweight and so I don't have a lot of overhead on the system that it's running on.
• It does really fantastic PowerShell integration.

Incentivized

• Sophos Intercept X is great at preventing malware infections and rolling back their effects. I have seen this happen hundreds of times since we installed it
• When combined with Sophos Central, you have an easy to use dashboard where you can manage all installations from a single pane of glass.
• It's easy to deploy on machines and stays updated.
• Good reporting features including alerts sent to the admin if there's ever something wrong with it.

Incentivized

• Price - Extremely high price tag for many of the solutions.

Incentivized

• It would be good to continue to minimize the amount of resources needed during a scan
• Provide more integration with Outlook to scan attachments with a notification that everything is good
• Provide a Click to Fix option when listing issues or high-risk problems on systems

Incentivized

• Sophos OOTB policies are very strict and they don't offer anything less strict without you creating new custom policies. I'm sure this is deliberate because the product starts you out in the safest way possible but it means that you will have lots of calls to your tech support desk when you first deploy it unless you do somewhat extensive testing beforehand.
• Sophos Intercept X is currently broken (at least the DLP component) by having secure boot turned on in the UEFI/BIOS. If any user wants to be able to write data to a USB drive or floppy from their PC (yes we still have a couple users who need to use floppies) we have to turn off secure boot on their PC, even if the DLP policy for that user/PC combination specifies that the user and PC are allowed to write to USB/floppy. This would be a very serious problem if it weren't for the fact that we have very few users who need to write files to USB. For us it's OK but I bet it would be a deal-breaker for others.
• I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Intercept X is any different than any other anti-virus, so maybe their admin alerts just don't clearly identify when they have identified a zero-day threat or maybe we just haven't had any zero-day threats.

Incentivized

McAfee has consistently delivered on its stated goals of providing comprehensive protection for our networks and systems. Due to their excellent work and follow through I have been, and will continue to be a loyal customer.

Incentivized

Cost add-ons for Security features is nickel and diming the process to keep pace with cybercrime. Limited Education budgets require us to be more pro-active in finding cost-effective measures to protect our devices, staff and students. Defender is a strong, well-featured product that is pricing itself out of the education market

Incentivized

We have gotten a great product for the price. Easy to maintain and set up on new devices. Support is great and easy to work with and understand.

Incentivized

It offers multiple security features and integrates well with Microsoft ecosystems. A workflow for threat detection, investigation, automated remediation, and a centralized dashboard is an added advantage. This application is mainly designed for experienced users; new users may feel challenged.

Incentivized

The usability has never been a problem. Sophos Intercept X is a program you can install and let protect your company without much intervention. Apart from a few policies, Sophos will keep you protected better than most any product on the market. Sophos Intercept X works quite well when you are looking to "tighten your grip" on user's access to websites, programs, and add-ons.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint chugs along just fine no matter what we throw at it and what systems it's running on. It doesn't take up a lot of resources either, so that's welcomed.

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy on memory and resources on clients.

Incentivized

The first time I tried to onboard my macOS endpoints to MDE I struggled for quite a bit. I had to reach out to Microsoft's MDE support team. The tech was very helpful in walking me through the steps during a screen share session

Incentivized

Most of the support reps are fantastic. There have been a few though that have had to be escalated via Account Manager when they haven't followed up but this is a rare instance, and often followed up by the Support Manager for APAC.

Incentivized

Deployment was handled by our team here and everything went pretty smoothly. We did have a few hiccups in our test group, but that only took a bit to get ironed out.

Incentivized

Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site

Incentivized

I haven't used Norton for a while, but when I did use it I felt that it slowed down my computer and had constant pop-ups, which were both equally frustrating and annoying. It was also very difficult to remove from my computer. Malwarebytes is a great, straightforward program I've used for virus scanning. It's pretty bare bones but I think if you just want something to scan for viruses it gets the job done quickly and reliably. In my opinion McAfee offers similar benefits as Norton but its more intuitive and doesn't impact system performance.

Incentivized

Defender is far easier to deploy and manage than Sophos and tends to work without as many issues. The threat assessment portal provides an in-depth view of the organization's security posture, whereas Sophos only shows the patching status of the PCs. We did need Intune to get many of the control features (disabling USB drives) that Sophos offered out of the box.

Incentivized

Webroot Endpoint Protection is not even in the same league as Sophos Intercept-X. I have tested and compared both sides by side, run simulations and it's not even close. Plus the Sophos central management is so much better. Easier to view user activities and apply policies and remediate threats. Sophos is the clear winner between these two products.

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easily scaled from small orgs to giant enterprises.

Incentivized

• Blocks unsafe websites
• Virus detection and removal
• Protects sensitive data

Incentivized

• Reduced incidents of security breaches lead to lower remediation costs and avoid potential financial losses and reputational damage.
• Reduces the need for additional third-party security solutions and training, thereby lowering overall security management costs.
• Increased efficiency and productivity of IT staff lead to better allocation of resources and cost savings.
• Reduces the risk of fines and sanctions associated with non-compliance, ensuring business continuity and protecting revenue.

Incentivized

• Once our technical and commercial areas got certified, the ROI over the time spent, is great. Actual customers, and/or new ones with other tools, feel safe and advised, once they get in touch with us.
• When Sophos EndPoint is being compared against Web Management Tools (competitors), we have failed to deliver, nevertheless, there is a version of Sophos Central (Cloud) which achieves this requirement at 100% and more, since is Cloud Based (on AWS).
• We are grateful to be on Sophos "Radar" as a Platinum Partner, and "The Americas" valued partner, we have seen our business grow, thanks to this kind of technology, throughout the years.

Incentivized