At our university we had a virus scanner who would without information and warning, simply delete freshly compiled assembler executable.
It was fun, finding that out. The desk should still have marks where i gnawed on it.
AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
21–30 of 33 posts
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe that the average user's computer should have hacking tools on it.
Irrelevant. The purpose of an antivirus is not to make a user conform to an average user, its to detect unwanted software. If the user obtains a keygen for some software, what business does an antivirus have with it?
I'm not talking about the keygens but the hacking tools ^^
It probably is unwanted software.
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#23About a decade ago, I made a tiny little executable in Delphi so I could browse the hard drive contents on school computers, which otherwise hide it from Windows Explorer using group policy. Mischievous and definitely against school rules, but harmless.
The school antivirus had a false-positive and decided it was some particular virus. God knows how.
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#24This reminds me of my adventures with Avira's terrible web heuristics half a decade ago:
https://grack.com/blog/2010/03/17/the-sorry-state-of-avira-a...
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#25I remember when MingW or Cygwin users were complaining that AVs were detecting "Hello world" binaries as malware too. IMHO AVs started becoming anti-user when they began detecting "hacking tools" and keygens/cracks/patches (there are certainly some which do have malware, but detecting software that does exactly what it claims to do is going beyond that.) That's acting in the interests of corporations, not users. It's…
I remember the day I tried to open an ASM Phrozen Crew demo and anti-virus automatically deleted it after flagging it as critical malware.
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#26I remember when MingW or Cygwin users were complaining that AVs were detecting "Hello world" binaries as malware too. IMHO AVs started becoming anti-user when they began detecting "hacking tools" and keygens/cracks/patches (there are certainly some which do have malware, but detecting software that does exactly what it claims to do is going beyond that.) That's acting in the interests of corporations, not users. It's…
I don't believe that the average user's computer should have hacking tools on it.
You may be misunderstanding. The "hacking tools" phrase likely refers to what others might call "penetration testing tools" and/or tools used for reverse engineering.
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#27I remember when MingW or Cygwin users were complaining that AVs were detecting "Hello world" binaries as malware too. IMHO AVs started becoming anti-user when they began detecting "hacking tools" and keygens/cracks/patches (there are certainly some which do have malware, but detecting software that does exactly what it claims to do is going beyond that.) That's acting in the interests of corporations, not users. It's…
They kinda had to, because of the rising popularity of Spybot and Malwarebytes.
Are you saying that Malwarebytes is a malware?
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#28I stopped using automatic anti-viruses. SPECIALLY AVG and Avast. Last time I tried to use them, they immediately deleted without asking if I allowed it, 80% of my tools and binaries. It is clear that anti-viruses on Windows are usually more dangerous than the viruses themselves. (in the end, the virus I wanted to track down, was in my router, not on Windows :/)
I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them. Third party anti-virus shares many of the features of malware: difficult to remove; runs at root level; user tracking; self-updating; and in subscription versions comes with the proposition of pay up or we will make your computer vulnerable. On the other hand, Microsoft's interests are less misalig…
>I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them.
Since when did they start offering it? and is it Windows Defender you are talking about? - thanks.
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#29I stopped using automatic anti-viruses. SPECIALLY AVG and Avast. Last time I tried to use them, they immediately deleted without asking if I allowed it, 80% of my tools and binaries. It is clear that anti-viruses on Windows are usually more dangerous than the viruses themselves. (in the end, the virus I wanted to track down, was in my router, not on Windows :/)
> It is clear that anti-viruses on Windows are usually more dangerous than the viruses themselves This is especially true regarding the bad track record of antivirus software w.r.t vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to elevate its privileges.
Can you elaborate?
Re: AVG says my programs are viruses (2012)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them. Third party anti-virus shares many of the features of malware: difficult to remove; runs at root level; user tracking; self-updating; and in subscription versions comes with the proposition of pay up or we will make your computer vulnerable. On the other hand, Microsoft's interests are less misalig…
>I've been using Microsoft's free anti-virus products on my Windows machines since Microsoft first started offering them. Since when did they start offering it? and is it Windows Defender you are talking about? - thanks.
Microsoft Security Essentials, since Windows XP. It's been replaced (incorporated) by Windows Defender on Windows 10.