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McAfee Wireless Home Network Security
Installation
Installing the wireless home network security package will actually install two different interfaces; the first being what McAfee calls the Security Center. This is not unlike the terribly annoying built-in windows security center which not only informs you about what is going on, but allows you to change the various settings for the multiple modules, all depending on what you have installed. Unlike the built-in Windows Security Center, you can't just turn off the McAfee one.  Since this review is primarily about wireless security, I will not be going into too much depth concerning the security center package. This can actually be downloaded separately and is listed in their free products section on the website. I would like to point out that the security center package, although it is a big advertisement for more McAfee products, does provide the average user with some good information. This includes such items as virus advisories, links to test your computers security and information on how to reduce the amount of spam you get in your inbox. Most of this information can be easily found on the internet anyway, but having it centralized and easy to access can give the novice a boost to their security know-how.      Unfortunately, what is missing is any mention of the wireless security package that installed the security center in the first place. The only link is through the system tray icon right-click menu. Since this product is so new, it probably has yet to be fully integrated into this interface, but still, it looks to me like someone dropped the ball. I would have also liked to see the ability to NOT install this interface and to just use the wireless software as a stand-alone product. This is just a personal issue I have with software in general and probably not a flaw of this particular package, but I will still complain anyway. Too many times I see computers that have become crapped up by extraneous software. Of course, these are personal annoyances that the average user may not care about or even notice. Now that I have gone through the extraneous software, let's talk about the Wireless Home Network Security interface. After installation you will be presented with a small icon in your system tray which resembles a small radar. This will be your wireless interface going forward. Anything you need to do with your network card will be done through this software and not through the vendor's software or the operating system interface. User Interface "Summary" Tab On the summary tab you can see what's going on with your wireless NIC. Items such as signal strength, status, any security you are using as well as transfer speed will be shown here. A listing of protected networks is also located on this view. Although I was connected to a WPA-PSK encrypted network and the traffic is considered encrypted, the software did not set this protection up and therefore does not consider this a "Protected" network. Only networks currently protected by the McAfee software are considered "Protected Networks". A better title for this might have been McAfee Protected Wireless network.  "Available Wireless Networks" Tab This one is pretty self-explanatory; it provides the user with the ability to view all possible networks that your system can detect as well as their status: secured or unsecured. The signal strength of each network is also listed to the right of the SSID. This is also the interface I used to connect to my pre-configured WPA network. A "refresh" button on this window would have been nice, although there is one located in the "Protect Wireless Router/AP" submenu under the options tab.  "Options" Tab This is the final tab, and by far the most important. It is from here you will do most of the basic administration tasks, such as protecting another computer, protecting an AP, unprotecting an AP, repairing security settings, viewing network events, and revoking access. 
Page 1: Introduction / First Looks
Page 2: Installation / User Interface Page 3: Testing Page 4: Licensing and Availability / Conclusion 
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