Have McAfee transformed SiteAdvisor Free into malware?

[Dencandy]

After a 2 week absence I came back & on switched on my desktop computer. Various updates got under way. After a few minutes a message appeared from WinPatrol saying McAfee were trying to install their Installer Cleanup on my machine (I have their SiteAdvisor Free edition). Since I didn't ask for it & don't know anything about it, I turned down the request.

Sometime later I realised my window was smaller. Looking at the top of the screen I saw a redesigned McAfee SiteAdvisor icon taking up 3 cms of space to the left followed by an empty space right across the top of the screen, reducing the size of my entire window.

"Another bl***y unasked for tool bar!" I thought. Sure enough, it is.

I've written to them & complained on both counts & will inform the forum of the reply.

Anyone know a good alternative to McAfee Site Advisor that doesn't take up a complete strip across the top of the screen?

[rong]

I don't have anything extra, are you sure it's theirs?

[Boris]

I'm running version 2.8.0.255 of MSA and nothing has changed for me either

[Dencandy]

Well I solved the tool bar problem, rong. Although I can't move the McAfee icon, I was able to move the Links tool bar onto the end of McAfee, so I got my window space back.

But what was the Installer Cleanup thing? Just a small program to help with the update? Anyway I didn't run it and McAfee is running OK without it.

The new McAfee plug-in is definitely theirs, by the way. Version 2.8.0.255. I checked it with McAfee SiteAdvisor! (Also with Microsoft Anti-phishing).

But I'll do some more checks.

Apologies to McAfee if this is a false alarm, but it's partly their fault for not explaining what they are doing. Perhaps this thread should be deleted, Admin?

[rong]

I seam to have version 26.6 build 6274, it updates itself through FF, did so not long ago. Is this out of date?

[andsome]

Have you picked up some Malware? Site advisor is exactly the same as it has always been on my computer. Welcome back by the way.

P.S. I just checked for updates and this is what I get.

You are running version 2.8.0.255 of SiteAdvisor's plug-in.

You are already using the latest version available. There is no need to re-install SiteAdvisor.

[Irene]

I know you won't want to know this especially, Dencandy, but AVG 8.0 Free has a Link Scanner and Web Shield.

[Dencandy]

Episode closed everyone! The new version just looked like a tool bar because initially it took up a complete new bar across the top of the page. Now I've moved my Links tool bar next to it & it's working fine taking up very little space as before. Still it's good to know that WinPatrol (free) told me about the uninstaller which presumably was only to uninstall the old version of SiteAdvisor.

Thanks for the info about AVG 8, Irene, but I replaced it with ESET Smart Security which I'm very happy with.

rong - I assume your version has a different build number for FF because the rest of us use seem to be using IE. SiteAdvisor seems to update automatically, which I'm not too happy with because we don't know what extras we might be getting with it. This is where WinPatrol & similar products like Drive Sentry come in useful to keep us informed of what might be attempts to automatically install something else with such a product that we don't want. Those who've used QuickTime or RealPlayer will know what I mean.

Away again in a couple more days. :)