Should I leave real time anti virus scanning on?

Hi Charlie. I'm Greg, an installation specialist and 9 year Windows MVP, here to help you.

No expert in Forums where we see the most cases (by the thousands) recommends Avast, AVG. Norton or McAfee, but we have solved many problems over the years by having them uninstalled.

I would uninstall any 3rd party antivirus and try running only built-in Defender which gives adequate protection, least issues, and is from Microsoft who knows how to protect their OS best. Let is schedule a scan for you and run it automatically unless it interferes - I've never even noticed when it runs.

If you want the best on-demand scanner install and run a full scan with Malwarebytes free scanner: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/
You can turn off the free trial at any time in the app's Settings > Accounts.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

______________________________________________
Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Hi,

You must keep Real-time scanning on, which is the sole purpose of Antivirus to protect you from threats in real time-Irrespective of using McAfee or Windows Defender.

Get an 3rd party antivirus, because the microsoft one doesn't do a good job.  Some of the computers that I have removed malware from only used windows defender and it did a crap job of protecting against virus.

I have used kaspersky total security, and I have then changed to norton security.  Really the choice is yours on who you go with, but do research more into the one that you want instead of just downloading one and hoping it will do the job.

No matter which Anti-Virus program you use: If you switch off real time scanning, your computer is not protected.

But: some AVs offer a gaming mode which prevents performance reducing scans and/or intense background processes while gaming ... I don't know though if McAfee does...

In general: McAfee is as good as any other well known Anti Virus program but is known to "require numerous services and running processes that consume a lot of system resources"...

Source and more info in this post of quietman7 - MVP.

+1 -  AV's must be run real time or they can't protect. It's nonsensical doing anything else.

Exception being that any AV (Defender included) has potential to block a software on rare occasions (false positive) so disabling

it temporarily (preferably while offline) is sometimes recommended while troubleshooting a software issue.

This is not as common an issue as it once was.

I've been using Avast free version since '05 and have never had a virus/malware, or issues with Avast other than occasional false positives.

The only thing approaching a negative is they started doing occasional pop-ups trying to push their extra pay for 'features' on the

free version a few years ago. Fair enough.

- Avast also has a gaming mode.

In the past McAfee, Norton and Kaspersky in particular were somewhat notorious for slowing down systems. This was more common for

those running the full 'suite' of options these AV's had on offer. Cpu's are more powerful these days, so this is generally not as

much a problem as it once was.

- As has been said, no single AV is perfect, so I occasionally run Malwarebytes manually to cross-check Avast, if I want to double check

a downloaded file or suspect something may have sneaked into my system.

.

PS:

I forgot to add in my prior post:

In case that you decide to remove McAfee and switch to in-built Windows Defender, you can use either Option 6 or 7 (depending on your Windows edition) while gaming: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3569-turn-off-windows-defender-real-time-protection-windows-10-a.html