Does McAfee Mess With Wireless?

I got this ACER laptop finally and I went ahead and started using the McAfee that came on as bloat wear. It seemed that my internet kept going on and off, on and off. Drivers loaded ridiculously slow and sometimes, pages wouldn't load at all.

I've since gotten rid of the anti-virus and as I'm typing this, the connection seems to be hold.

Could there be other issues, potentially? It's Windows 7 64-bit... it's so new, I can only tell you I've installed drivers from the ACER website as well as a ton of updates by Windows.

 

I would load Microsoft essentials or Avast free on after uninstalling the McAfee.

 

McAfee messes with everything.

 

You seriously beat me too it........

the right way to uninstall McFail is kinda weird... they make a tool ( link) that uninstalls it cleanly because if you use windows to remove it, it will still show nag screens every now and then... use that tool and it will get rid of it all the way, its from McAfee's own site here

for a free anti virus I would use avast or MSE... I just recently started to use kaspersky and for me it found a lot more junk then a free solution....

but if you MUST pay for one I would pick up Kaspersky or ESET nod32.... both very excellent anti virus programs and can be found for under 25 bucks over at amazon!

 

Thank you all so much! I did go ahead and download Avast last night just to hold me over till I get Symantec. I've used it for years and I'm very happy with it, despite the occasional clash with Java updates.

I'm downloading that uninstall link that you provided at this moment. I did go the the Windows way and I am still seeing the short-cuts to the anti-virus and was wondering why it wasn't totally gone. This will be very helpful!

Again, thank you! I now know never to use that anti-virus again.

 

Shortcuts rarely go away they're supposed to. Odds are, the software was installed with every single option on, including internet connection monitoring, so that it was scanning every bit that came in. If you're really unlucky, McAfee took over the network connection protocol and really borked everything. You're 1000x better off without it. Unfortunately, you said you're going from McAfee to Symantec. That's a lateral move at the bottom of the pile, IMO. Symantec has similar non-free price points and doesn't do a significantly better job than free AVs out there.

TL;DR: Keep Avast or go with MSSE, and return Symantec.

 

I beg to differ- Symantec is one of the best AVs on the market since 2009 when it was completely re-done.

 

Very possible. I haven't played with Symantec in a while.

 

Indeed, it used to be a POS, but now it's actually decent. McAfee on the other hand is still the nightmare it was.

 

Keep in mind that in Windows any anti-virus that monitors things like disk access, network access, etc, will put "hooks" into the OS that allow it to intercept all traffic to and from a device. Any problem with the code hooking in and poof your performance and / or reliability can go right in the dumper. Because of this hooked into the OS nature, disabling anti-virus often doesn't fix the problem, because the hook code itself is broken.

McAfee is one of the worst offenders in this arena. Most other anti-virus software use the same type of hooks, but most aren't as buggy. Me personally, I just don't allow windows to connect to anything but game servers and game forums servers from places like steam.

 

you could get a copy of kaspersky CHEAP/free from amazon or frys (with price matching) imo i have tried them all but when i used this one...man things just went faster... and it actually catches everything including that new rootkit that came out a few days ago that makes you reinstall

 

Funny you should mention this , I'm having the exact same problem, with the exact same equipment. I was just searching around to see if I should post, when I found your post. I will be unloading Mc-afaily, courtesy of the link posted for the removal tool, and loading MSE, also courtesy the Texanman. If I buy protection, I think I'll give ESET Nod32 a try.

Edit; Addendum; I have removed Mcafee, and installed MSE. but I am still having failures of the D-link 601 wireless. Can anyone advise me, is it possibly because the modem and wireless are in my computer room (about 30' of cat5 to the wall & then 6-8' of bell wire to the modem) as apposed to being plugged in directly to telephone distribution module in the basement? Another thing I will look at first is the possibility that I have overloaded the phone line with devices. I have 3 phones and a fax connected on the same service.
Update; Unplugged all but one phone and modem, still getting failures.

Edit update; Now I'm getting Mozilla crash reports, but Mozilla is not actually crashing as far as I can see.???

 

Update; The crash reports stopped (mysteriously) and I have not lost the d-link in some time. Is it possible that everything takes a while to adjust after Mcafee leaves???

 

Except viruses.