Deleting McAfee antivirus SW has disabled my access to some websites?

[berkeman]

TL;DR Summary

Because of some deceptive billing practices by McAfee over the past couple years, I decided to uninstall the program from my Win 10 home laptop and look at other options.

But today I had trouble with WiFi access to my HP printer, and traced it to loss of access to HP's website. Testing shows a number of websites that just spin now, and I haven't been able to figure out a pattern. I can get to the Tek website but not HP or National Semiconductor.

Laptop restarts don't help. Any ideas? Thanks.

Oops, am posting on my phone right now in case it is a virus infection. Please see the Summary above.

 

[Vanadium 50]

When did you uninstall McAfee? Are the problems coincident with this, or did you "go naked" for a while and suspect you picked up something nasty?

 

[berkeman]

I tried to uninstall it about a week ago but it kept popping up in weird places. It didn't technically expire until around now.

 

[phinds]

Have you tried clearing your cache? How about uninstalling/reinstalling your browser?

 

[berkeman]

Cleared cache yes, but no reinstall of browser yet. But on my home laptop I use Firefox, and tried Chrome for the first time with the same results

 

[phinds]

Cleared cache yes, but no reinstall of browser yet. But on my home laptop I use Firefox, and tried Chrome for the first time with the same results

Hmmm ... the plot thickens

 

[phinds]

Have you tried running Windows cleanup? Seems unlikely to help but can't hurt.

Wait ... this is Microsoft we're talking about. It can ALWAYS hurt

 

[Tom.G]

Look for a file named "hosts", with no extension.

On my ancient system it is located in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\

Browsers/WIndows use it as a first step of DNS lookup before they go looking on the Web for the numerical address of a site. It is used mainly on local networks so the user can connect to other machines/peripherals by name rather than having to remember their Ethernet address. Check if there are any entries in it, it is normally an empty file.

Warping the 'hosts file usage can be rewarding, it does a wonderful job of blocking nasty or annoying (advertising) websites. I use it by setting the address of such sites to all zeros (0.0.0.0), over 4500 entries so far!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[pbuk]

You could try downloading and running the McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool (MCPR) https://service.mcafee.com/?locale=...fromSearch=true&page=shell&shell=article-view.

Alternatively, and particularly if you have been using and abusing this laptop for a couple of years downloading and installing all sorts of junk as I do, do a complete windows reinstallation https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

 

[jack action]

I tried to uninstall it about a week ago but it kept popping up in weird places. It didn't technically expire until around now.

You could try downloading and running the McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool (MCPR) https://service.mcafee.com/?locale=...fromSearch=true&page=shell&shell=article-view.

Uninstalled program reappears by itself? You need a program to get rid of another program?

Sounds like McAfee IS the virus.

But what @Tom.G proposes in post #8 seems like a logical explanation.

 

[berkeman]

Update -- I'll work more on this tonight at home, but I did find that my phone also was able to go right to tek.com but also could not access hp.com, so now I'm suspecting my Xfinity modem/router or account. I'll check my account online today from work, and restart my modem/router to see if that clears up the problem. Otherwise I guess I'll chat/call Xfinity support to see if they can figure out why all of a sudden they started blocking the HP printer website yesterday.

Thanks for your help folks, much appreciated. I'll post an update tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I hate to try and troubleshoot multiple problems at once, but...

Comcast's name servers - the thing that turns www.ibm.com into 23.11.3.109 - can be...um...as reliable as the rest of Comcast. If you know how to change your name server, try 8.8.8.8 (Google's)

 

[pbuk]

I hate to try and troubleshoot multiple problems at once, but...

No, I think you may have hit the nail on the head, however I recommend Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 over Google's name server.

 

[pbuk]

Uninstalled program reappears by itself? You need a program to get rid of another program?

Sounds like McAfee IS the virus.

Yes, McAfee has been notorious for this (and for piggybacking itself on other installations, notably Adobe PDF reader) for years. To be fair though, other AV products (e.g. Norton) also have uninstall tools: the built-in OS tools do not work so that malware cannot use them to remove the product.

 

[vela]

No, I think you may have hit the nail on the head, however I recommend Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 over Google's name server.

I ran into a problem recently where Cloudflare's DNS servers weren't resolving the domain name for a government website, so I switched to Quad9's servers.

https://www.quad9.net

 

[berkeman]

was able to go right to tek.com but also could not access hp.com, so now I'm suspecting my Xfinity modem/router or account. I'll check my account online today from work, and restart my modem/router to see if that clears up the problem.

That was it! When I got home I verified that the problem still existed, power cycled my Xfinity modem/router, and after it came back up I was able to access hp.com and use my Wireless network to access my HP printer here. So it was some issue with my ISP Xfinity that a modem reset was able to fix. And for some reason it affected access to some websites but not all. I'm just very relieved that it's not a virus that caused this.

Whew! Thanks again for your help and the useful information.

Edit/Add -- I updated the thread title to show that this was figured out.

 

[phinds]

Glad you got it fixed w/o major troubles

 

[symbolipoint]

I tried to uninstall it about a week ago but it kept popping up in weird places. It didn't technically expire until around now.

(I'm only at post #3 right now.)
I would guess you did use or include the use of the McAffee removal tool which you would download from McAffee site. I would also guess that you are on Windows 10 and as other places of advice have presented, Windows 10 has its own security & protection program in place.
( am not really suggesting any manner of remedy - just making comments.)

 

[berkeman]

I would guess you did use or include the use of the McAffee removal tool

No, and that's one of the very helpful things that I've learned from this thread. I used the Windows Uninstall program, and that left enough junk behind to cause problems. I should have looked for a McAfee uninstaller instead, if it would have showed it to me.

 

[symbolipoint]

No, and that's one of the very helpful things that I've learned from this thread. I used the Windows Uninstall program, and that left enough junk behind to cause problems. I should have looked for a McAfee uninstaller instead, if it would have showed it to me.

So great that you figured how to fix the problem with the Xfinity equipment.
--------------------
One of the FIRST things I did after buy and setup a new computer a few years ago was to UNINSTALL the McAffee software on it, AND THEN download and run their removal tool. (Windows 10 laptop computer). I have still not ever installed any kind of Security&Protection software onto the machine; because W Defender already included in Windows 10 is supposed to be really good by itself; how true, I do not know but so far, 6 years, no sign of infection. (I do actually use AdwCleaner once in a while).

 

[profbuxton]

I had McAffee install itself on my Win10 PC as a byproduct. I removed it with a program called REVO uninstaller and I was surprised to find the HUGE number of files that McAffee dumps onto a PC. It seems to have its hooks into everything. Managed to finally clear it all out. Even using McAffee removal tool it still had a large amount of rubbish left behind. I would never install MCAffee again, I just use the WIn 10 protection and Zone alarm and have had no problems. Also do regular backups.

 

[pbuk]

One of the FIRST things I did after buy and setup a new computer a few years ago was to UNINSTALL the McAffee software on it, AND THEN download and run their removal tool.

I go a step further than that: on any new computer I remove the vendors' software installation completely and replace it with a "vanilla" Windows downloaded from Microsoft.

Edit: and on my daily use machine which gets a LOT of stuff installed and removed I repeat this process with a reinstallation from scratch every 12-24 months or when I notice things (boot times especially) slowing down.

 

[symbolipoint]

Although not entirely sure right now, I believe you are supposed to do both procedures to remove a installed protection & security program. (1) Uninstall from computer's settings or control panel (and then restart?) (2) Use the p&s's removal tool, run it, and restart computer (again maybe).