Which means, you got it from a 3rd party install
I would remove it and install a 'good' AV like Avast; AVG blows, that PoS tends to not detect trojans while Avast will. I had a known infected keygen and only Avast detected it. Thanks god the AVG system was due to be reformatted.
That's what I run
Indeed.
I agree, I've head plenty of good testimony about AVG and tried it out once because of it; it's terrible, plain and simple. I've been loyal to avast! for years now. I've only had one bad-ass root-kit slip past it... and by bad-ass I mean it fucked up everything. Any file on that HDD that was a .exe became infected. It disabled avast! and fucked my system beyond repair, so there wasn't much hope after that, lol. I am still loyal to avast! though, because I doubt anything else would have caught that virus either.
I run very similar, except that instead of using Spybot S&D with Malwarebytes, I use Spyware Doctor alongside it. Malwarebytes does most of the work, but when I want a thorough clean I use Spyware Doctor which finds things Malwarebytes doesn't.
Here is the entirety of what's installed on my new computer (in order):
Before the 17th of July:
Motherboard Drivers
Video Drivers
On the 17th:
Windows Update
Firefox
Brink (including Steam)
Installed after the 17th:
GIMP 2
Diablo 2 (w/ expansion)
NWN (including GameSpy)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
So, yeah, no idea where McAfee came from and I never got any prompts about installing it.
-JJ
Most pre-built computers that have pre-installed operating systems come with a bunch of their own programs and trials on the system to start with, this is most likely where it came from, but if not, any one of those drivers could have had optional (sometimes not optional; cockheads) software that it installs with it. I've installed drivers before where they offer a third party program with the software, and when it comes to system installations like drivers, they are more commonly anti virus offers than anything else. Some games do it too, not sure if any of those would. Firefox could and has offered things in the past, usually like a Google toolbar or somesuch, but that might have changed now... with Google chrome and all. Any number of reasons it could be there, but I'd just remove it and get avast!