McAfees HackerWatch

Currently I am on a rolling subscription to McAfees VirusScan, nothing else,
no SpamGuard, etc.
But yesterday, some major upgrade took place and I found that HackerWatch,
which I did not ask for, was installed.
There is no mention of this service in their help files.

This repeatedly tries to connect to the Internet and I am looking to
disable/uninstall it.

A bit of rummaging around shows

- it is installed as a Windows Service on Automatic Startup
- shows up as a O23 process (HiJackThis)
- It is installed under $(SystemDrive)\Program Files\Common Files\McAfees

Seems that the number of processes that McAfees run just to protect your PC
these days is incredible.
Does anyone know if McAfees run a news server?

I was also not impressed in that in installing a new version of VirusScan,
various files of the old version are still on the PC. Surely they should
have been deleted?

Stephen Howe

Malke
Fri Sep 08 09:35:25 CDT 2006

"Stephen Howe" <stephenPOINThoweATtns-globalPOINTcom> wrote:

> Currently I am on a rolling subscription to McAfees VirusScan, nothing
> else, no SpamGuard, etc.
> But yesterday, some major upgrade took place and I found that
> HackerWatch, which I did not ask for, was installed.
> There is no mention of this service in their help files.
>
> This repeatedly tries to connect to the Internet and I am looking to
> disable/uninstall it.
>
> A bit of rummaging around shows
>
> - it is installed as a Windows Service on Automatic Startup
> - shows up as a O23 process (HiJackThis)
> - It is installed under $(SystemDrive)\Program Files\Common
> Files\McAfees
>
> Seems that the number of processes that McAfees run just to protect
> your PC these days is incredible.
> Does anyone know if McAfees run a news server?
>
> I was also not impressed in that in installing a new version of
> VirusScan, various files of the old version are still on the PC.
> Surely they should have been deleted?

http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/ - McAfee support forum
http://us.mcafee.com/root/support.asp - McAfee Support
http://www.mcafeehelp.com/
McAfee Removal Tools/Instructions
http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=71943

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Stephen
Fri Sep 08 20:00:05 CDT 2006

>> I was also not impressed in that in installing a new version of
>> VirusScan, various files of the old version are still on the PC.
>> Surely they should have been deleted?
>
> http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/ - McAfee support forum

Thanks for this, but even so, _DO_ McAFees run a news server?
I don't want to post _ANYTHING_ web-based, I want (even if I have to log in)
a news server access, just like this newsgroup.
I am finding that the web-based interface times out above.
Can't they do anything right?

Right now, I am so pissed off with McAfee.
Their product is seriously deficient in the usability stakes.
I am speaking as a programmer.

1. I notice that in "http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/", the product is not even
listed.
Nowhere is "McAfee SecurityCenter" mentioned as a product.
That scores -10 from me straight away.

2. Every Windows product I know, terminates if you double-click the top-left
corner box.
"McAfee SecurityCenter" does not. Pretty unbelieveable.
Another -10.

3. Every Windows product I know has a menu bar.
And just about all is such that "Help, About" tells you which version of the
product is running.
The word "Version" is not mention in the Help, Index either.
"McAfee SecurityCenter" does not. No menu. No "Help, About".
The whole interface resembles the Security Shield in Control Panel of
Windows XP, SP2
Another -10.
<later>
Aaah, I have found the version numbers. But it took some rummaging around.

4. Absolutely no mention of HackerWatch in the help files.
No mention of how to enable/disable it.
Changing the entry in Windows, Services from Automatic to Manual makes no
difference.
Another -10.

Stephen Howe

Ian
Sat Sep 09 15:26:01 CDT 2006


This page:

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-6033_16-4206887.html

Explains more about what it does.

HST in principle I agree that if you only intended to install an antivirus
product, then installing a product which reports alleged hackers back to
McAfee (with or without your pemission) is foistware. There is after all no
way this could be considered an antivirus product, or even part of one.