Solved McAfee vs Defender Issue

I have McAfee on both of my W11 laptops. When I downloaded McAfee it was understood that McAfee automatically disables Defender. But recently I just happened to notice that Defender showed that it was turned "On", not off. Had McAfee not disabled Defender all this time?
Investigating, I discovered Speccy showed that Defender was indeed listed as "Disabled" and McAfee was on, so apparently all was as it should be, except Defender was fibbing? The situation has not presented any issues of any sort so am I to assume all is well?

It takes a special person to download McAfee.

Corona said:

It takes a special person to download McAfee.

Click to expand...

I had Kaspersky for over 12 years and it was a great antivirus, but like the US Government, I finally decided I could no longer tolerate or trust their ties with Moscow.
I've tried Bitdefender 2 different times in the past and both times Bitdefender caused problems with my computer. When I dumped Bitdefender the problems disappeared.
McAfee scores well in both AV-Comparatives and AV-Test, it's not connected to Moscow, and it has caused no problems with my computers. I'm not pushing McAfee, but so far it does everything I need it to do.

Myself I think I would go with avast or avg which are both owned by Norton if Defender isn’t good enough . Have always found Mcafee a big resource hog .

Defender isn't totally turned off when using another AV. You can still run periodic scans with it.

Open Windows Security -Virus & threat protection and on the right side select 'Who's protecting me?'

Thanks for the heads up Fabler, Defender AV was disabled, but on closer inspection like you said in Windows Security I discovered Defender Firewall was indeed still turned on. It's off now!
Thanks again!