Originally Posted by
OverClokx
Advertisements on sites install it, shockingly enough.
Overall, I'd say the issue was prolly due to the fact that McAfee is a really bad software. It's good for the usual stuff, but the aggressive and resource-hogging nature of McAfee is really lame.
I'd say if you're paying for McAfee, you'd be better off cancelling your subscription and buying....Malwarebytes, the program you used to remove it. Malwarebytes paid version has real-time scanning, and is far less invasive as an application as McAfee, and tends to be a lot more reliable, as well. (I use it on my PC and I don't think I've had to shut it off for any reason in the last 2 years, and it only uses a grand total of 40k in resources while running real time scanning 24/7, as where McAfee/Norton are all around 100-200 (iirc, it's been a while).
You're lucky, though. Most malware (especially the better ones), have kill switches that nuke your PC. I've worked IT for probably 9 years, and I've seen ones that remove all permissions on all executables on a PC (easily fixed by a reg fix), to hijacks of windows defender (prolly the worst I've seen, since WD was a portion of the OS on Vista), and wasn't even possible to remove, disable, or anything.
Biggest problem with AV software as of late is the fact that Zero-Day infections are horrible, and it's impossible for all of the programmers/updaters at each of the Antivirus software's companies take days, if not weeks, to nuke a Day-1 virus/etc, as new variants are coming out every day.
Places like 4chan, unsavory websites (porn/torrents/etc), and general browsing on other sites ridden with advertisements are usually how these infections take place. Common sense is your greatest tool, antivirus protection comes second.