Samsung’s Partnership with McAfee will Pre-install McAfee VirusScan on the Galaxy S8

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McAfee is a household name in the consumer security market since 1987. Intel announced they were acquiring the company back in 2010 and had plans to rename it to Intel Security, but ultimately backed out of this decision. McAfee’s security software is available on most major platforms including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android as well. This week the company announced they were extending their partnership with Samsung.

While the Galaxy S8 smartphone line is included in this partnership, the deal doesn’t end there. McAfee LiveSafe is a cross-device security product and this will be shipping on all Samsung PCs produced in 2017. This will come with a 60-day free trial and then the consumer will be offered a deal after the trial period ends. Samsung also sells smart TVs, and McAfee has a piece of software for this product line as well called McAfee Security for TV.

McAfee Security for TV is currently available on Samsung’s smart TVs which are sold in the United States and South Korea with no additional purchase being necessary. However, this extended partnership will bring this software on smart TVs from Samsung which are sold in additional countries throughout the first half of this year. Specific countries included in this agreement were not detailed in the official announcement though.

Last and certainly not least, McAfee VirusScan will be pre-installed on the Samsung’s Galaxy S8 line starting last month. This security application will also be available on Samsung’s Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and Galaxy Note 5, although availability may vary from market to market. I don’t see the application on my Exynos unit yet, but it could be coming in a future OTA update. As of right now, it’s unclear if this will be easy to uninstall, or if users will be forced to disable it or use a de-bloater to get it off their phones.

We at XDA are still skeptical of the need behind anti-malware software on Android devices, given the extensive permissions model that users can take advantage of to monitor applications on their own. However, many people unfortunately still put forth little effort into protecting themselves from malicious apps, so perhaps this partnership may be beneficial for those consumers. We’re not the arbiters of truth here, so do let us know your thoughts on this move by Samsung in the comments below!