02/01/2022
McAfee Total Virus - A Total Nuisance
McAfee has gone a step too far and their anti-virus has become somewhat of a total nuisance for PC users. It's impossible to determine if a file or program is truly infected with a virus or not. Any complex Windows application requiring administrative rights has a distinct possibility to be found suspect. In the industry this is called a "False Positive." When an antivirus application discovers a suspect file it will normally issue a warning and a list of options to choose from. The option of continuing with the process should be up to the user. An application that is properly "code signed" should not be suspect. Also, software engineers, programmers, and users should be able to select a folder or folders to be excluded from real time and scheduled scans.
Here is an example of what happens when you install a new application on your computer with McAfee Total Virus. You double click on the new desktop shortcut and something flashes on the screen too fast to read and the new application doesn't appear. So, you double click on the shortcut again only to get this warning from Windows,
"The item '#########x.exe' that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so this shortcut will no longer work properly."
This is your clue that McAfee is on your machine and the nuisance has begun. McAfee has removed your application from its proper folder without your permission and is now located in "Quarantine". To get your application out of Quarantine you need to open your McAfee product and click on the "gear" located at the upper right corner of the window. This is your antivirus settings. You click on "Quarantined Items", highlight your application in the list, and click on "Restore." Your application is now back into its proper folder, but when you try to run it, guess what? Yes, it's gone again, back into Quarantine.
So now you have to remove it from Quarantine again and then go to "Real-Time Scanning" and add your program application to the "Excluded Files" list by clicking on "Add File" and locating your application in its proper folder and selecting it. Now that your application is back in its proper folder it will run. However, when your antivirus scans your system.....yep, your application is gone again and you must start over from scratch!
In my opinion, if you have a McAfee antivirus product, you should remove it from your computer, if you don't have it yet, don't buy it unless you're prepared to deal with this ridiculous nuisance.
The scam with all of these paid antivirus programs is that they are installed on your new computer before you buy it. You may not even know it's there. "Free" means a 30-day trial where the company hopes to trick you into an annual or monthly rental plan. The computer manufacturer gets a kickback on future sales (subscriptions) to the antivirus software.
Windows 10 comes with Microsoft's free "Windows Security" that includes "Windows Defender" and "Windows Defender Firewall." That is all you should ever need. Don't be scammed.
Some friendly anti-virus apps we've used are Avast, AVG, and WebRoot.
Here is a Youtube video on how to exclude an application from being scanned by McAfee:
https://youtu.be/m9kKd2M0TQQ
Copyright 2021, Family Software
Does McAfee Antivirus scan quarantine your file(s) automatically in real time, whenever you access them? Are you wondering how to exclude a file from mcafee ...
