A reader who wishes to remain anonymous is attempting to help his helpmate. This person writes:
My wife recently took her Mac to the company where she works as a contractor so that the IT department could install updates for some of the software shes required to use. When she brought it back home we discovered that theyd installed McAfee Endpoint Protection. Since its returned her Mac is locking up and shes having problems with her email. I have to think that its the McAfee product. Do you know how we can uninstall it?
I do, but before I tell you how, a word of caution.
While it would have been nice if the IT person had asked before installing this software on the Mac (as it belongs to your wife and not the company) it may be that the company requires some form of antivirus software for any computer that interacts with its email system or has remote access to its servers. Personally, I think this kind of antivirus software causes more problems for Macs than it solves, but then I dont have to answer to the companys CTO. So, my first suggestion would be to contact IT, explain the problems youre having, and see if you can come to a mutually agreeable solution.
If thats not possible (and you wont endanger the company or lose your contact) and you wish to proceed, do the following.
Launch Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities) and, using an Administrators account, enter this command:
sudo /usr/local/McAfee/uninstall EPM
and press Return. Enter the accounts Administrators password and press Return again. If everything goes to plan youll see a message indicating that McAfee Endpoint Protection has been removed. However, McAfee Agent still remains. To get rid of it as well, enter this command in Terminal:
sudo /Library/McAfee/cma/uninstall.sh
and press Return. Restart your Mac and McAfee will be gone.
Should others face a similar situation with a different variety of software its always a good idea to see whats been added to the /Library/LaunchAgents and the /Library/LaunchDaemons folders. Removing unwanted items from these folders can often put an end to disruptive utilities that launch on startup. Of course if you have an uninstaller app, all the better.