VPN and virus/malware protection

First, 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.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer, school or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites.  However, that being said one of the most respected contributors to these forums and a respected developer has reported favorable about NordVPN.  So it may be more secure than most of the other public VPNs.

I recommend you uninstall both McAfee and Windscribe according to the developer's instructions.

You can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name.  For the software in question you'd do the following search(es): 

1 - Name contains mcafee

2 - Name contains windscribe

3 - Name contains vpn

4 - Name contains "name of McAfee antivirus software"

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  

Uninstall all virus/performance-enhancing apps by deleting them from the Applications folder. Nothing but trouble! The iMac is self-protecting assuming you only install programs from the App Store (or as much as possible), respond promptly to Apple update notifications and otherwise use it “responsibly” at all times.

There are no known Windows-like Viruses in the wild that self replicate and affect macOS, because of the underling UNIX  Foundation and Permission Limitation. 

As a Testament of the problems specific AV Software causes - please read some of the first 600 posting on the ASC Forums

So one is paying good money for a Non Existing issue affecting macOS. The only protection this software is the Developers Bank Account each time another person subscribes or purchases this software.

The The Built in Security  is all that is required to protect the computer.

Start here: Effective defenses against malware and other threats

Not a huge fan of add-on VPN client apps (most network connections should already be using SSL/TLS, which is a VPN), nor add-on anti-malware, nor add-on cleaners. The built-in security does pretty well against most dreck, particularly if you keep patched to current. The add-ons have sometimes added corruptions, crashes, performance problems, and vulnerabilities, and some have leaked data, too.

The usual problems that people get into here are adware (and whether or not some adware app is desirable is a decision only the user can make), a lack of backups (really popular way to lose data), password re-use and weak passwords, and trying to run old and down-revision versions. Which add-on apps really don’t help all that much with…