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McAfee: Stay Secure & Private
McAfee, LLC. · Utilities

What’s the catch? Tracking and data collection concerns — 2 independent sources agree, backed by SDKs in the app package and the app manifest.

Analyzed automatically from 6 independent signals that had to agree — not a hands-on test, and not human-reviewed.

1 on the catch list · analyzedConfidence: High6 signal sources1,552 reviews scannedNot human-reviewedas of 2026-10-07
 Which version this describes

App Store

This analysis describes version 10.9.1 of the app, analyzed 2026-10-07 . The app may have changed since.

The store currently lists version 10.9.1, updated 2026-09-29.

Google Play

This analysis describes version 9.11.0.644 of the app (the version number recorded inside the package we inspected), analyzed 2026-10-06 . The app may have changed since.

The store currently lists version 10.9.1.15, updated 2026-09-24.

What the analysis found

Each finding shows what agreed and how strongly. Automated analysis

The catch list 1

Charges we publish at a strength we stand behind: measured from an artefact, agreed by independent sources, or reported by enough users to clear that charge's own published bar.

Tracking and data collection concerns
2 independent sources agreefrom SDKs in the app package and the app manifestartefact 6e43fd02b97f…
The app ships session-recording or a wide tracking stack, holds permissions that read personal data, or is reported by users to sell, leak or over-collect it. The evidence line says which of those was observed.
What we saw: The app requests QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES, which lets the app enumerate every other app installed on the device.

Context 2

Measured and published because a reader would want to know — deliberately not a charge. The measurement alone does not show a harm.

Asks for more sensitive permissions than similar apps
MeasuredPublished as context — deliberately not a charge · from the app manifestartefact 6e43fd02b97f…
The package requests substantially more of the device's sensitive permissions than the typical app in its category. This is a measurement, not an accusation: a permission is granted because a feature needs it, and a wide request list is a reason to look rather than a finding on its own.
What we saw: Requests 14 of the 18 sensitive permissions Android defines — ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION, ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, CAMERA, PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS, READ_CONTACTS, READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, READ_MEDIA_IMAGES, READ_PHONE_NUMBER…
Cheapest and priciest options are far apart
MeasuredPublished as context — deliberately not a charge · from the store listingview evidence
The disclosed in-app purchases span an unusually wide price range. Published as context: the cheapest and priciest items may be different kinds of product entirely, so the spread alone deducts nothing.
What we saw: In-app purchases run from USD 2.99 to USD 199.99 — a 67x spread across 10 items

Positive evidence 1

Things this app does right, published at the same strengths as the catch list.

No advertising SDKs
Measuredfrom SDKs in the app packageartefact 6e43fd02b97f…
No advertising or mediation SDK of any kind was found in the package.
What we saw: No advertising or mediation SDK among the 9 SDKs detected in the package

One source only — shown, not confirmed 1

A single kind of evidence. We publish these because withholding them would be the bigger distortion, and we do not treat any of them as a finding we stand behind.

Reported by users: Hard to cancel
One source onlyShown, not confirmed — the only source is user reviews.view evidence
Cancelling the subscription is blocked, hidden, multi-step, or simply does not take effect.
What we saw: Hard to cancel: raised by 5 distinct reviewers (0.9% of 531 reviews scanned)

What reviewers said

Verbatim excerpts from public store reviews, shown as corroborating user reports. They are not Appworthy audit evidence, and a quotation is not proof of the finding it sits under.

Hard to cancel

I downloaded the app, didn't like it and the app won't let me cancel my subscription!!!

1★ · Google Play · 2026-10-02

McAfee preys on older members of our society — McAfee needs to be stopped. My elderly father had a recurring charge on his credit card for a subscription he hasn’t used in four years. Customer service made it difficult to cancel and…

1★ · App Store · 2026-09-04

Scammers app — Impossible to cancel subscription

1★ · App Store · 2025-11-28

What this app sells

Every purchase the store discloses. Store listing
 What this app sells

From the store listing. Billing terms are read from each purchase’s name — the stores don’t publish them — so treat them as a strong hint, not a disclosure.

Subscriptions9
Monthly Standard SubscriptionMonthly$2.99
McAfee+ Advanced MonthlyMonthly$19.99
Monthly Plus SubscriptionMonthly$9.99
Total Protection MonthlyMonthly$9.99
Monthly Advanced SubscriptionMonthly$9.99
Yearly Standard SubscriptionYearly$29.99
McAfee+ Advanced YearlyYearly$199.99
Yearly Plus SubscriptionYearly$79.99
Total Protection YearlyYearly$99.99
This list is cut off. Apple shows at most 10 in-app purchases, and this app is at the limit — so it very likely sells more than we can see.
Google Play doesn’t publish per-purchase prices, so this list covers the other store only.

How the automated analysis works

Automated, corroborated, and never human-reviewed without a person.

This assessment is produced automatically. Six independent signals are read — user reviews, SDKs in the app package, the app's own on-screen text, the app manifest, the store listing and the store privacy disclosure — and each candidate finding is filed under the sources that support it.

No charge stands on one kind of evidence — with one published exception. A finding is either a measured fact that anyone can reproduce (an ad SDK is in the package; every subscription bills weekly; the privacy label omits a tracker we can see), or it is an interpretation — and an interpretation needs independent sources to agree before it reaches the catch list. The exception is a harm only users can see: a charge may publish from reviews alone, as “Reported by N users”, once enough reviewers raise it to clear that charge’s own published bar. That agreement rule is what replaced the human reviewer, not a model’s confidence.

There is no overall score, on purpose. A 0–99 number was published here until 2026-09-15. It was withdrawn because it discriminated too weakly to be the instrument — 44.7% of every pair of apps tied — and because a single number is a verdict where a count is an observation. What publishes instead is a row of measurements, each of which says what was counted and, where we could not look, says that instead.

Findings under One source only are real reports we do not stand behind as findings. They are shown because withholding them entirely would hide a genuine complaint, and labelled because publishing them as charges would be an accusation off a single source.

 Not yet human-reviewed

Several measurements above say “Not assessed” because no artefact we hold can answer them. A human review is what resolves those — and it can remove a favourable band as easily as add one.

Hands-on inspections are not yet open.

 How this page was produced
Analyzed 2026-10-07 Version analyzed: 10.9.1 (App Store), 9.11.0.644 (Google Play)6 independent signals1,552 reviews scannedConfidence: HighNot human-reviewedVocabulary v1.13Methodology v1.3
Signals run: user reviews, SDKs in the app package, the app's own on-screen text, the app manifest, the store listing and the store privacy disclosure.