McAfee Issues after Big Sur Install

There is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community   

Uninstall according to the developer's instructions.

There have been users that have problems with McAfee and Big Sur. You would have to ask McAfee what their plans are.

FWIW, you should uninstall McAfee. Macs do not need antivirus/security apps.

See: Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community

With the installation of McAfee, your issues are only just beginning… and after several years of users posting problems with their Macs after installing any anti-virus product, you would be better off simply removing McAfee, and letting the built-in security do what it is designed to do without anti-virus product interference. Just keep all so-called, anti-virus, and Mac cleaner type products off of your Mac, and it will run alot smoother.

The biggest theat to your Mac, depending on your download patterns, will be from adware/malware that accompanies software downloaded from non-original developer sites. Anti-virus products won't flag these, and won't find any viruses either, but they are great at flagging valid application and system files as false positives.

SDMAC2 wrote:

Is there a feature within MACOS I have missed that I could harness instead of paying for a 3rd party product?

macOS - Security - Apple

Set up your Mac to be secure - Apple Support

Protect your Mac from malware - Apple Support

Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community

Again, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community   

McAfee products may be vcry good on PCs but they tend to be the "kiss of death" on Macs. Uninstall according to the developer's instructions.

SDMAC2 wrote:

Are there any controls that are able to actively detect and respond to attacks or protect based on behaviour of the system as this seems to be where the AV vendors seem to be targeting ?

Yes there is. In Safari's Security preference pane:

Having logged a fault with McAfee support it appears their developers are working on a fix, but for the moment no resolution has been offered. Not great planning and testing from McAfee very disappointing given I have used their products for many years

With regards to using antivirus on MAC's unfortunately their popularity has made them an increasing target for malware and ransomware activity from those naughty people out there and even though the underlying operating system and features Apple provides puts you in a good position to protect against these (if your system is configured correctly) having additional tools like McAfee website advisor and other vendors tools combined with good user awareness can put you in an even better position

Hi there I am always interested to hear other MAC users opinions. From my experience I have been one of those people who have moved from MS operating systems to a MAC and followed guidance from various security sources that still advised the use of antivirus and malware protection, however I rarely see any real publicised threats to these products. To my knowledge having a tool or service that can Inform you if you are about to browse to a suspicious website and if needed prevent that from happening is good practise. Is there a feature within MACOS I have missed that I could harness instead of paying for a 3rd party product?

interesting thanks for that. So they all seem quite passive controls that are preventative measures apart from the Safari tracker detection and prevention piece. Are there any controls that are able to actively detect and respond to attacks or protect based on behaviour of the system as this seems to be where the AV vendors seem to be targeting ?

SDMAC2 wrote:

Are there any controls that are able to actively detect and respond to attacks or protect based on behaviour of the system as this seems to be where the AV vendors seem to be targeting ?

The AV vendors are targeting naive users who willingly spend their money on unneeded and ill advised products.

Interesting view point. While I agree in some cases AV vendors breed fear in order to sell products and are there own worst enemies at times unless you have the basics in place as per your previous guidance and have a clear understanding of the threats to your specific systems or other peoples systems how are you able to provide clear guidance on any advanced controls that may be required whether open source, freeware or paid for?

SDMAC2 wrote:

Interesting view point. While I agree in some cases AV vendors breed fear in order to sell products and are there own worst enemies at times unless you have the basics in place as per your previous guidance and have a clear understanding of the threats to your specific systems or other peoples systems how are you able to provide clear guidance on any advanced controls that may be required whether open source, freeware or paid for?

Name one virus that is out in the wild that impacts Macs. It is hard to justify installing an AV app that uses system resources and may cause problems to potentially protect against something that does not exist.

I absolutely agree there are limited threats that target Apple systems because of their secure design approach , however my point is that providing guidance informing everyone that use MACS that they do not require AV or other additional suitable security controls is not a wise approach as MAC users are not a one cap fits all group of users or organisations and each use case should be considered carefully before providing advise or they spend their limited budget or hard earned money. 😀

Have a great weekend

Take a day off Bob, there are legitimate reasons why people need to use an AV product other than the Apple default, such as company IT policies insist one of named solutions. McAfee need to sort their product out I agree. This is the reason I don't often frequent forums with such helpful advice. Your solution would mean I would have to switch back to a Windows PC when working from home, but at least that would be one less untainted Mac.

Juggling2 wrote:

Take a day off Bob, there are legitimate reasons why people need to use an AV product other than the Apple default, such as company IT policies insist one of named solutions. <snip>

There is no legitimate reason to use a product known to provide no benefit and to cause problems. If your company IT requires you to use such a third party app on your Mac it is time to replace the IT manager or whoever is making these policies. It is the responsibility of IT staff to manage IT which does not include following policies that could damage or harm company resources and worse, result in lose of company data.