McAfee Virus Problems

[DanG]

I have the mcafee virus program and I have noticed that it says I am no longer protected. However, when I push the "fix" button, which it says will fix the problem, it does nothing.

The only thing I can think of is that my subscription ended a long time ago and I have just changed my computer clock to earlier this year.

Any Ideas?

Also, are there any good free virus programs?

[Thibault]

You mean McAfee itself tells you that or the Windows security center?

It probably has to do with your subscription ending. Why not just uninstall it and get a free anti-virus program like AVG Free Edition or avast!? (A lot of us here on NBR consider those anti-virus programs to be much better than Norton or McAfee anti virus).

[DanG]

I just downloaded avg. Do I have to uninstall mcafee? I would rather keep it on my computer.

[Thibault]

Why would you rather keep it on your computer?

Usually, having two anti-viruses on the same computer isn't a good idea. It's a waste of space and they won't like each other.

[DanG]

Well so far there is no problem. I will see how much space mcafee takes up.

[Thibault]

Look at how much memory it takes, not HDD space. Your just slowing down your computer by having 2 anti-virus programs running together, that and I think McAfee has a bad reputation of taking up a lot of memory (like Norton).

[AKAJohnDoe]

To get rid of the debris that the vendor (or add/remove programs) uninstall leaves behind, there is a McAfee uninstaller, much like there is a Norton/Symantec uninstaller.

[John B]

Never enable the realtime protection of two or more AV simultaneously...it can cause various crashes and even lead you to an OS that won't boot

[sasanac]

If your McAfee AV is out of date then there's not much point it being there. It's not as if it's going to find anything that AVG or Avast! can't. I'd remove it and free up your resources HDD space, cpu and ram usage etc. Plus as others have pointed out it can cause major problems.