Is McAfee now a malware?

[setite]

I recently bought the McAfee antivirus/Internet protection with my PC, and the program was one of the reasons I chose that one PC in particular. I had once used McAfee, and in my memory it had worked better than any other similar program I used after it.

You can imagine my surprise to discover that McAfee now has got so low as to act as a malware: it keeps changing my search in Google Chrome to Yahoo, instead of the one I chose (Google), AGAINST my will. As a common hijacker.

I can see no way to stop it from doing that. Well, I guess if I turn SiteAdvisor off or completely remove it from Chrome it will stop. But I wouldn't like to do that if there is another option (that I can't see, so far). 

I would like to apologize for calling your program a malware if that's isn't true and it's just a user's stupidity problem, but so far the first option seems to hold true. If not please point the solution to me.

Best regards,

Setite

[exbrit]

Moved this to McAfee WebAdvisor as it is that which is doing this.

On any browser page click to the right of the small green and red M at top right of the toolbar and select Options.

Click the option to give results in any search engine.

Then go to browser options and make your default search engine Google, or whatever you want.

You may need to restart to see the change.

If you don't yet have WebAdvisor and are still on the older SiteAdvisor do the same but in options uncheck the option to use Secure Search.

Secure Search is contracted only with Yahoo at the moment, hence that change.

Sorry it looked like malware, it isn't I assure you 😉

[setite]

Thank you for your fast answer.

Is that the option you are talking about? The one that has always been grayed out and can't be clicked? 😕

I wasn't joking when I said I can't find a way to stop it from doing that..

Sorry but so far it still looks like it's malware. Anything that hijacks your browser is one of such... Even more if it doesn't let you change back, That's disappointing, really... 😕

[exbrit]

Open it in Internet Explorer, the settings should work there.   You have to be logged in as an Admin-level user to do it.

[setite]

Internet Explorer? Why would someone make a program that only works properly with IE? 😕

[exbrit · Accepted solution]

That's not what I said.  Try opening a web page in IE and adjust your settings there - that will change the setting for all browsers.   Chrome restricts setting changes in the software so you wont be able to do it there.

If you don't want to do it then contact Technical Support direct, it's free by phone or online chat and linked below.

They'll probably tell you exactly the same.

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[setite]

Oh, well... Thank you for your help. Now going to decide if I should install Internet Explorer again or just unistall SiteAdvisor, I guess... 😕

[exbrit]

I don't understand that - as IE is already part of the operating system, all you need to do is locate it in your All Programs, open any web page in it.   No need to install anything or even make it your default browser.

[setite]

I had removed  it. And I'm not the only one. That's how much people like it

[exbrit]

You can't remove it, it's part of the operating system, you can only turn it off in Windows Features.  Besides IE11 and the new Edge browser in Windows 10 promise to be the safest browser to use anyway. 

I think maybe you should try Technical Support in your own language as they can check all this for you.  

All kinds of software, including McAfee/Intel use IE for all their background services, so by turning it off you are probably heading for disaster with this software and perhaps other applications.