McAfee still has a pretty good reputation with respect to its ability to catch viral stuff; but the spyware and popups are not, strictly speaking, viral. Asking that your AV program protect against spyware is a little like asking your family doctor to protect you from swindlers and con men.

While McAfee and other AV programs have added anti popup and anti spyware functions, and/or have produced separate products specific to these kinds of junk, these are still less than fully effective largely because no organization(s) have been formed for sharing info on this sort of malware similar to the AV orgs that get the word out on new viral/trojan/etc stuff. Each program mfr has to find and block each new malware method independently.

My main reason for dropping McAfee was that their own home site is so full of popups and ads that it's a nuisance to go there - and clean up after. Rather unprofessional for something with their product base, and there are many other good AV programs.

John