Software Review McAfee Ultimate 2025

[Ryxuu]

Ok. I think I am done with McAfee for a while.

• Scheduled scan did not start. It was resolved by re-installing McAfee.
• VPN sometimes can't connect and stuck in connecting status and cannot be switched off.
• Now this WebAdvisor issue.

 

[Trident]

Sorta counter-intuitive to turn off recommended security to install this extension. I did / do find this disappointing...

That’s ChatGPT, not McAfee recommendation though. You didn’t allow firefox to provide the extension with data and now FF probably remembers this somewhere.

 

[Sorrento]

fwiw I spent some time y/day with paid ChatGPT 5 (PhD level ) on the my McAfee WebAdvisor extension / firefox issue(s) and after ChatGPT read everything online in about 2 minutes, it said well turn off or reduce this setting in firefox, then reinstall it. Failure, try this... repeated failures. Apparently if firefox is your preferred browser and you've hardened it, good luck getting WebAdvisor to work with firefox. Works ok in Edge. Sorta counter-intuitive to turn off recommended security to install this extension. I did / do find this disappointing...

Have you reinstalled Firefox, I know you were thinking about it a few weeks ago, I have had no issues with Firefox & Brave with the extension?

 

[ForgottenSeer 116559]

fwiw I spent some time y/day with paid ChatGPT 5 (PhD level ) on the my McAfee WebAdvisor extension / firefox issue(s) and after ChatGPT read everything online in about 2 minutes, it said well turn off or reduce this setting in firefox, then reinstall it. Failure, try this... repeated failures. Apparently if firefox is your preferred browser and you've hardened it, good luck getting WebAdvisor to work with firefox. Works ok in Edge. Sorta counter-intuitive to turn off recommended security to install this extension. I did / do find this disappointing...

I downloaded a copy of Firefox to try for myself. After I installed the extension, McAfee prompted me with a page to turn on personal data collection. It works fine after agreeing. If I remove the extension and reinstall, I'm able to agree to personal data collection again. What hardening did you do?

 

[simmerskool]

That’s ChatGPT, not McAfee recommendation though. You didn’t allow firefox to provide the extension with data and now FF probably remembers this somewhere.

right BUT I uninstalled McAfee AV and the WebAdvisor (you suggest that the other day iirc) then reinstalled it and nothing changed. it looked like ChatGPT 5 found mcafee pages about installing WebAdvisor in firefox, I doubt ChatGPT 5 hallucinated about some of the recommendations it made about tweaking firefox to get it all working correctly -- I'd like it to work correctly, otherwise mcafee seems very good...

 

[simmerskool]

Have you reinstalled Firefox, I know you were thinking about it a few weeks ago, I have had no issues with Firefox & Brave with the extension?

well no, but I did uninstall / reinstall mcafee. I can use Edge with mcafee and it seems to work as intended.

 

[superleeds27]

right BUT I uninstalled McAfee AV and the WebAdvisor (you suggest that the other day iirc) then reinstalled it and nothing changed. it looked like ChatGPT 5 found mcafee pages about installing WebAdvisor in firefox, I doubt ChatGPT 5 hallucinated about some of the recommendations it made about tweaking firefox to get it all working correctly -- I'd like it to work correctly, otherwise mcafee seems very good...

Stop listening to ChatGPT lol.

If you've still got issues, report the issues to Mcafee

 

[simmerskool]

I downloaded a copy of Firefox to try for myself. After I installed the extension, McAfee prompted me with a page to turn on personal data collection. It works fine after agreeing. If I remove the extension and reinstall, I'm able to agree to personal data collection again. What hardening did you do?

Right, after reinstalling mcafee, I got that page too about turn on personal data in firefox, I clicked it, nothing happens! my current understanding if you have ff hardened (various switches) it defeats WebAdvisor. as to exactly which switches, all I know so far is more than one, or extensions too, perhaps ubo, eg...

 

[simmerskool]

Stop listening to ChatGPT lol.

If you've still got issues, report the issues to Mcafee

I was on the phone with mcafee support the other day for 90 mins, (English was his 2d language -- he had to consult with supervisor (or with ChatGPT)), not the best experience with tech support, not the worst. The first thing he asked me how many computers do you have, I think his goal was to sell me MORE mcafee -- right now I have more mcafee licenses than I need...

 

[superleeds27]

I was on the phone with mcafee support the other day for 90 mins, (English was his 2d language -- he had to consult with supervisor (or with ChatGPT)), not the best experience with tech support, not the worst. The first thing he asked me how many computers do you have, I think his goal was to sell me MORE mcafee -- right now I have more mcafee licenses than I need...

Or maybe wanted you to try Firefox on another machine to see if the issues were happening on that one too?

 

[piquiteco]

Right, after reinstalling mcafee, I got that page too about turn on personal data in firefox, I clicked it, nothing happens! my current understanding if you have ff hardened (various switches) it defeats WebAdvisor. as to exactly which switches, all I know so far is more than one, or extensions too, perhaps ubo, eg...

This happened to me yesterday when I installed Firefox and the McAfee WebAdvisor extension would not activate. McAfee WebAdvisor would not activate even after accepting the data collection consent, the button did not respond when clicked, I kept thinking...thinking... thinking... and then I remembered that Firefox wasn't set to save history and cookies in private browsing mode. When I enabled it and restarted Firefox, I clicked the button to accept data collection, and the McAfee WebAdvisor extension worked in Firefox. Here's a tip for @simmerskool and anyone else who's having problems. This was my own experience, which I discovered by chance.

 

[simmerskool]

This happened to me yesterday when I installed Firefox and the McAfee WebAdvisor extension would not activate. McAfee WebAdvisor would not activate even after accepting the data collection consent, the button did not respond when clicked, I kept thinking...thinking... thinking... and then I remembered that Firefox wasn't set to save history and cookies in private browsing mode. When I enabled it and restarted Firefox, I clicked the button to accept data collection, and the McAfee WebAdvisor extension worked in Firefox. Here's a tip for @simmerskool and anyone else who's having problems. This was my own experience, which I discovered by chance.

Yes, a good point, and yes, we (me & chatGPT 5) tried resetting history to "remember history" and it failed for me too. alas. Became obvious if I needed WebAdvisor to work with firefox, I'd need to uninstall firefox and its settings / profiles, etc, and install vanilla version, and probably uninstall & reinstall mcafee av again, OR, f*ck it and just use Edge... Annoyed but ok.

 

[Trident]

Yes, a good point, and yes, we (me & chatGPT 5) tried resetting history to "remember history" and it failed for me too. alas. Became obvious if I needed WebAdvisor to work with firefox, I'd need to uninstall firefox and its settings / profiles, etc, and install vanilla version, and probably uninstall & reinstall mcafee av again, OR, f*ck it and just use Edge... Annoyed but ok.

But why don’t you make McAfee Customer Support reinstall the browser for you…? Export whatever you wanna save (like passwords and stuff) and let McAfee Customer Support deal with it.

The second line support are very knowledgeable, I’ve dealt with them before in regards to True Key password manager.

First line support (like Norton and many others) generally useless but I’m sure they can reinstall a browser.

I think the culprit is not history but cookies…?

I am not sure cuz I use browsers not so hardened, pretty much in default setups and Web Advisor works everywhere so unable to assist really.

 

[simmerskool]

But why don’t you make McAfee Customer Support reinstall the browser for you…? Export whatever you wanna save (like passwords and stuff) and let McAfee Customer Support deal with it.

The second line support are very knowledgeable, I’ve dealt with them before in regards to True Key password manager.

First line support (like Norton and many others) generally useless but I’m sure they can reinstall a browser.

I think the culprit is not history but cookies…?

I am not sure cuz I use browsers not so hardened, pretty much in default setups and Web Advisor works everywhere so unable to assist really.

ahhh, easier to just use Edge at this point. about once every 6 to 12 months, is more than enough first line support for me. I can uninstall / reinstall firefox -- I just don't want to, (and should I have to??)

 

[Trident]

ahhh, easier to just use Edge at this point. about once every 6 to 12 months, is more than enough first line support for me. I can uninstall / reinstall firefox -- I just don't want to, (and should I have to??)

I use Edge too anyway… not sure if you should have to but if you really wanna use FF, then it’s worth sorting this issue out so web advisor can do its job.

 

[piquiteco]

I just created that thread because i wanted to know insights of that phishing campaing going on and get that site

Yes, actually the thread you created was this one, the thread we are currently in, which was a review by @Shadowra of McAfee Ultimate 2025 on July 7, 2025, who is now enjoying his vacation.

flagged aswell, but it probably wont take long that they notice and move into different domain

They will definitely change the website once it has been flagged as malicious; no one will even go near that domain.

Also i was curious about that is it enough if the antivirus detects jar file before flagging the site as malicious, it was never about mcafee just overall discussion

I was also curious when you created this thread and there was malware on that website disguised as a .Jar file. Yes, it's true, that was the title of your thread. "If the site contains malware, should frontline page be blocked" Actually, starting with the title of your thread, it was clear that it had nothing to do with McAfee, but rather with the website that was infected with malware. Then the conversation in the posts ended up unfolding into many debates about whether McAfee was good or bad and why it didn't detect the malware, and so on, in an endless debate.

Sure i was using mcafee on my main computer when i posted this thread and moved yesterday back to defender for nnow since i wanted to use mcafees vpn along the antivirus but since i dont have auto-billing enabled the speed is limited, also the vpn part of mcafee should improve and in future it probably will

Yes, it's good to test different products. It may seem ridiculous to some and perhaps paranoid to others, but I don't see anything wrong with it. By switching antivirus programs from time to time, you also gain experience in case you need to switch products for some reason, as was the case with Kaspersky in the United States.

Also trident pretty much told that the site is rated as ''unknown/ not rated'' instead of rated as safe and the antivirus will respect that and perform more aggressive towards files on that domain

Yes, it was classified as unknown/unclassified, it hadn't been analyzed by McAfee yet. Now it has been analyzed by them and flagged as malicious.

I might change my mind and change my av pretty often because i like to mess with them, but im not never saying that any antivirus is bad or blame them or complaint about how they do in overall

Yes, as I said above, sometimes it's good to change antivirus software from time to time to see how it performs on our machine.

Everyone just started posting on that thread posts where they showed wich antivirus/dns/web filter blocks the site currently, that was not my main point when i created the thread

Yes, exactly. When I said in my post #157 that "There are people who have no patience," I was not referring to you in any way, although it may seem that way to anyone who has followed your posts in this thread. But in no way was what I said directed at you when I said "There are people who have no patience." I don't talk behind people's backs. There was a member in another thread who was causing trouble, members and Devs here and there, he was in almost every thread, having conversations and discussions that made no sense at all, don't you remember? I had to speak to him directly, it was unacceptable, for me he crossed the line by accusing a Dev of being a SCAMMER, that's serious. That's when the moderator closed the thread for 3 days. I think many here remember the episode I'm talking about.

After all it was interesting discussion about mcafee ( how it works) and about virustotal detections, and what the jar file did after all etc.etc

Yes, it was a very good discussion, I also liked that topic, I didn't leave my post there because I couldn't find your topic, I had to search until I found it. But thanks @Moonhorse, I didn't make that post referring to you, if I offended you in any way, I sincerely apologize. When you have news like this about malicious URLs or malware, create a topic and share it with us. It helps us and other people a lot. Thank you for sharing your experience with the malicious website that was hosting malware disguised as a .JAR file.

 

[piquiteco]

ahhh, easier to just use Edge at this point. about once every 6 to 12 months, is more than enough first line support for me. I can uninstall / reinstall firefox -- I just don't want to, (and should I have to??)

Use the portable version of Firefox, back up your profile, and copy it to the folder where the portable version profile is saved. It's easier, leaves no traces on your machine or in the Windows registry, and makes it easier to solve problems. I did this on my computer. What's more, you can carry the portable version of Firefox on a USB stick wherever you want. Give it a try, you might like it.

 

[superleeds27]

I use Edge too anyway… not sure if you should have to but if you really wanna use FF, then it’s worth sorting this issue out so web advisor can do its job.

Sounds like you're not using FF in it's default state, so you can't really blame McAfee here

 

[Sorrento]

Installing Firefox: - A step by step guide:

Firefox Install

 

[andree.tan]

Does McAfee still not scanning on access (copy,move,extract file) ??