New Laptop With Trial Macafee Installed

RussJK

soay wrote: »

Thanks for your advice
I have never used any antivirus on my other laptop which I have used for 4 years without any problems as the only people I know who have suffered a virus have actually had an antivirus product installed.
I just use Windows Firewall & Defender
If I use the appremover will it ask me for the actual version of Macafee & if so how do I find out?

If you use appremover, it will search and figure out itself what you have and what version. The only intervention required is to select which security program you want to remove, and to allow the computer to restart when asked during the removal.

Not using an antivirus is a valid choice, provided other steps are taken such as not using an admin account. The main problem with this is a bit catch 22; without a virus scanner there is no way to verify how effective such an approach has been.

It's quite possible to have a malware infection of some kind without knowing it, and all it will take is one to show obvious signs, and then the rest become apparent. Just the other day a friend acquired a fake.HDD rogue app, which prompted them to download Mawarebytes to remove it. The scan showed up 4 hidden spyware programs that had been running as well as a fake AV (Antiviruspro) which they assumed was just a normal security centre popup.

soay_2

RussJK wrote: »

If you use appremover, it will search and figure out itself what you have and what version. The only intervention required is to select which security program you want to remove, and to allow the computer to restart when asked during the removal.

Not using an antivirus is a valid choice, provided other steps are taken such as not using an admin account. The main problem with this is a bit catch 22; without a virus scanner there is no way to verify how effective such an approach has been.

It's quite possible to have a malware infection of some kind without knowing it, and all it will take is one to show obvious signs, and then the rest become apparent. Just the other day a friend acquired a fake.HDD rogue app, which prompted them to download Mawarebytes to remove it. The scan showed up 4 hidden spyware programs that had been running as well as a fake AV (Antiviruspro) which they assumed was just a normal security centre popup.

Thanks for your reply.
Sorry for not responding earlier but I felt a bit battered yesterday although I did expect to be berated for admitting to having no antivirus installed!
I shall probably use MS Essentials when I have parted company with Macafee but I have to confess I don't normally download anything as when it asks do I want to save or run, I panic as I don't know what to do.
I'm intrigued by your remark regarding Administrator
Are you saying that if I use a secondary account any possible threat to the computer could trigger the needing Administrator permission box,please. .

Toxteth_OGrady

It's a lot easier for malware infections to exploit on an account with admin privileges as you've already in effect removed one of the security barriers that will prevent unauthorized malware from infecting your machine.

The difference between 'save' and 'run' when you are downloading a program's installer is that 'run' will download to a temp folder on your pc. Save will download the installer to a folder of your choice (e.g. 'Downloads') so that if you want to re-install the program subsequently you don't have to re-download it from the internet as you have saved the installer on your computer.

RussJK

soay wrote: »

I shall probably use MS Essentials when I have parted company with Macafee but I have to confess I don't normally download anything as when it asks do I want to save or run, I panic as I don't know what to do.
I'm intrigued by your remark regarding Administrator
Are you saying that if I use a secondary account any possible threat to the computer could trigger the needing Administrator permission box,please. .

I wouldn't let forum comments bother you, and it's probably better to assume that they were written with the idea of helping you rather than as a reprimand It's certainly how I read the tone of them in this thread.

In regards to "save or run", it means that your browser is trying to download something and wants to know what you want done with it. It really is as simple as whether you want to 'save' the download to a particular folder without running the download, or if you want to 'run' or load the download as soon as you have downloaded it. This is entirely normal when you select something to download. If you hadn't deliberately set out to download something, then the best thing to do is close the box.

As Toxteth_OGrady answered, running the computer day-to-day from a non-administrators account is safer as it is an extra barrier to prevent malware from installing itself, i.e. it doesn't have permission to do so. The idea is that you only go to the administrator account when you want to install something or make system changes.

To be honest, I don't really bother - but I might do if I was running a stripped down computer with no antivirus running (someone who wanted full resources of the computer devoted to gaming might choose this as a setup for instance).

soay_2

Many thanks to Toxteth-OGrady & RussJK.

soay_2

The previous post went before I was ready, obviously caught the send button with my usual incompetence!

I do realise other contributors were trying to be helpful & I do appeciate it

soay_2

Just an update to say that I have now said goodbye to Macafee & have installed Microsoft Essentials on new laptop.

Will also be installing it on other laptop.