While McAfee may be right about removing other security suites you do still need the following;
1] A firewall, always on. I don't know if your McAfee suite includes a firewall. If it does, ensure it is turned on. If not, turn on Windows' own firewall which is plenty good enough, and use that until you decide whether to continue using it or download and install any 3rd party firewall.
2] An Anti-Virus scanner which McAfee includes. It must be running continuously in the background and must update it's virus definitions regularly, preferably automatically if you have a good internet connection. Run scans regularly, eg once a week or so.
3] Anti-malware. All recognised anti-virus scanners do a good job with viruses, but none of them catch all malware. That's why we need to add to our arsenal of protection with utilities like the free versions of Malwarebytes Anti-malware and SUPERAntiSpyware.
I use both those. But only for manual scans once a week or so. I don't let them run in the background. In fact the free versions don't allow that anyway although SAS may want to set itself to load at Startup, so watch the install process carefully to disable that option if offered.
We agree, sadly, that the utilities we used to recommend, Spywareblaster, Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft's AdAware, no longer work well with today's AVs
Hope that helps.
Mark