No Internet Access - McAfee Related

Had to look at my neice's Toshiba laptop in the last few days. The laptop was unable to connect to the internet. On feeding my internet details into the wireless connection the laptop had located the 'Plusnet' connection displayed 'Limited'. Not seen this before to be honest but after delving into various bits I noticed that the McAfee security package had expired.

On removing the McAfee security package entirely the internet worked once more . Was this intentional thereby trying to force people to renew subs? It does look like it is and is a terrible thing for a company to do. My estimation of McAfee has dropped considerably. So if you can't connect your laptop and you are running an internet security package then maybe you have the same problem.

On removing the package I then installed the FREE version of Avast antivirus.

Avast Antivirus

Everything works well again now .

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

I had a few problems with McAfee and removed it from my laptops. I'm also considering removing Windows - a very intrusive programme.

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

See? I told ya there was a connection between anti viral suites and loss of Internet!

I'm still debating whether to remove the Bitdefender from my desk and laptops. I've decided it's not the fault of the router, but the software.

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

We get McAfee with BT broadband, we had trouble with it saying it had expired then told BT & they put it back on, now though I constantly get warnings that both McAfee & Windows Firewall are switched off! drives you up the wall! Usually it happens just as I'm about to pay for something which is worrying.

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

Aaaarrgggh! Never EVER have two firewalls running at the same time as they'll fight each other and give you an awful lot of problems.

I use AVG Free which does come with a firewall, but mine is set to OFF and I keep my Windows firewall set to ON.

Only ever have one anti-virus, but as many anti-spyware as you like. The more security the better. Oh, and free is just as good as paid for, believe me.

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

I like AVG and it's easy to operate but Windows keeps restarting itself and turning AVG off! now I can't figure out how to put it back on as AVG says it doesn't recognise my computer!

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

I recently stopped using mcafee when my subscription ran out, never had a problem, simply removed it and installed Norton.

Mcafee were very helpful last year when I had problems.

Think it must have been a coincidence and not something they would do intentionally.

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

Not a good sign. When firewalls are switched off and can't be activated easily it can sometimes be that a system has been compromised by a malicious program (trojan or malware etc). Should get someone to have a look at it or download something like Malwarebytes to run a check.

Malwarebytes Anti Malware FREE

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

Thanks, will do!

Re: No Internet Access - McAfee Related

When a security suite is installed it will usually disable the Windows firewall and take over the task.

Some security suites seem to have difficulty registering with the Windows Action Centre. The result is that it reports the security suite's protections aren't working when they really are.

Ways to check if the protections are switched on or off:

* Open the security suite and see whether it says it's working or not.

* Look in Task Manager to see if the security suite's processes are running. If the process isn't plainly listed as 'mcafee' there will usually be a hint in the process names that will let you tie it/them to the security suite.

If both of those check out, then it's likely that the firewall and other protections provided by the security suite are working despite what the Action Centre messages are.

The message that the Windows firewall is not running is likely to be true because the security suite will have correctly disabled it.

The above is a possibility that probably needs to be checked out before thinking that protections aren't working.

I know it can happen with Bitdefender and Norton. I've been running Bitdefender Internet Security for almost a year now and this is the only problem experienced with it. Seems to be OK recently though.

If you go to the forums for particular security suites (including McAfee) and type 'Action Center' or 'Windows Action Center' into their search box, there are a number of threads to be found about this problem.