Live data from Hacker News

Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

github.com

101–110 of 345 posts

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is the dominant operating system, and as such has a giant target on its back. It's true, I despise Windows, but the risk of torrenting on Linux vs the risk of torrenting on Windows is quite a huge difference. And look, Microsoft has been user-hostile for years now, the fact is, this kind of behavior from them doesn't surprise me anymore, and I'm tired of watching people take those punches lying down.

Windows is definitely more user-hostile than it has been in the past, and seems to be becoming more so[0], but honestly I'll still take Windows over a Linux Desktop any day because it works in a way that is much more in line with how I want my computer to work. Your attitude seems to very much be "you're an idiot for still using Windows and Linux is great", which is condescending as hell. [0] I am by no means defendi…

Ahh, well no. I don't think Windows users are idiots. I think they're normal, non-technical people who don't want to drop to a terminal to pair their bluetooth earbuds because the BlueZ GUI was written in an afternoon by some rando and never worked right.

But I do admit that for programmers, I don't understand why they'd want to still use Windows. I mean obviously there's reasons, but they're totally beyond me. Seems like masochism.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#102

Just another way in which the cure (anti-malware software) is worse than the disease (the malware). Slows down every file access and program launch, high false positive rate, is itself a vector for exploitation... why did we ever think this was a good idea?

It seemed like a good idea because back then the OS wasn't multi-tasking.

> It seemed like a good idea because back then the OS wasn't multi-tasking.

Of course virus scanners have been around in some form forever, but I believe always-on virus scanners didn't really take off until the multi-tasking age (and indeed couldn't—"always on" doesn't mean much without some sort of multi-tasking). For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#2000%E2%80%... tells me that ClamAV wasn't released until 2001.

Optional, "on-call" virus scanners are highly unobtrusive (though, like manual backup, only as reliable as their operators), and I can't imagine this sort of outcry against them.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#103
post #59
post #46

Any qBittorrent users on Windows who can verify that the issue described actually still persists?

Submitter here. Can confirm. Defender uninstalled it on a random Windows box of mine today (7/26/2021). Windows 10 Pro. Version 2004 Build 19041.1110. Windows Defender updated today (7/26/2021). Hence the curiousity and submission.

Ah. That’s very frustrating.

I’m not on Windows myself but I wonder if there is any workaround.

E.g. does it help to add the qBittorrent application folder as an exclusion to Windows Security?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/add-an-exclusion...

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll keep thinking that until you pirate a copy of Adobe Shitware 2077(tm) and it works fine for a day until the embedded cryptolocker activates and holds everything on your system hostage for 3 bitcoin.

If you ran Linux executables you torrented you'd have the exact same problem.

Yeah, but less likely frankly, because it's less likely the malware author would take the time to make a ransomware for Linux, though I know it's happened before. 1% of the market vs 80% of the market, which would you target? And of course, utilities being free on Linux negates the need almost entirely in any case.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#105

When I mentioned in another thread this happening to other open source projects (winmerge, kdiff3) [0], I was told I was making stuff up and/or this is in 'best interest' of users and that this only happens because these are 'uncommon applications'. Its going to be amusing to read replies to this thread. Pardon the snark, but this is BS and its really sad to see this shitshow being defended. [0] https://news.ycombina…

>I was told I was making stuff up and/or this is in 'best interest'

I read the comment thread. It's unclear which comment said that you were "making stuff up". There's also zero matches for "best interest" (your direct quote).

>that this only happens because these are 'uncommon applications'.

Relatively speaking, winmerge and kdiff3 are quite uncommon, compared to the normal stuff that people have installed on their computers.

>Pardon the snark, but this is BS and its really sad to see this shitshow being defended.

Are you against people defending microsoft on principle, or are simply unsatisfied with the explanations given? The explanation given (ie. unknown software -> don't know whether it's safe -> warn users it's unknown) seems pretty reasonable to me, as it fails closed rather than fail open. For a technical user that might not be an acceptable trade-off, but I also don't see it as an unacceptable default for non-technical users.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#106
post #56
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that too before I made the switch to macOS. Yes it was a learning curve initially, but it wasn't unmanageable, and you start to uncover Windows annoyances that you never knew existed because you were used to them and conditioned into thinking they were normal for so long. You'd be surprised how flexible your needs are when you aren't pigeonholing yourself.

>and you start to uncover Windows annoyances that you never knew existed because you were used to them and conditioned into thinking they were normal for so long ..which promptly get replaced with mac annoyances. Random ones off the top of my head: * closing a window (using the red x icon) doesn't close the app * overwriting a folder deletes existing contents, rather than merging them * weird scroll acceleration that…

I never understood the rational behind the second one... Sure I get that's how directories probably work underneath the hood but in a GUI I guess I expected a bit more "magic"

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#107
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also be curious what happens if you rename them to {not-keygen}.exe I'd hope it wouldn't make a difference, but my experience with IT security thinking makes me bet the other way.

Yeah, I once circumvented gmail's antivirus detection by sending a (perfectly legitimate) installer executable as a txt file because gmail apparently just has/had a strict "no files with certain extensions" policy. And IIRC Zendesk applies the same rule to file attachments on support tickets. I had pitched for my team to build a tiny widget that would send attachments to virustotal, but it would have required a licen…

> we never had a security incident with files coming into our support center

...that you are aware of.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#108
post #28

I recently unpacked an old archive from the time I was making some shareware few decades ago. Windows Defender instantly ate all keygen.exe files from it. Those keygens were my own keygens for my own software (I wrote them myself and used them to generate keys for my customers back in the day).

This happened to me as well. Even when those keygens were in zipped files, Defender would flag them as malware and remove them automatically. The only solution I found to this was to keep the keygens in a password protected zipped files.

Interesting ideas here: how antivirus becomes a form of censorship. Maybe that’s an extreme view but it feels like now that Microsoft supplies it’s own defender app. And like all forms of martial law beginning as a way to protect citizens!

I also noticed that with win10 when apps crash it sends the data to Microsoft—as though they can fix 3rd party apps for us. Yeesh. I think I’ll skip out on Windows 11 TYVM.

Re: Windows Defender blocks qBittorrent

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is definitely more user-hostile than it has been in the past, and seems to be becoming more so[0], but honestly I'll still take Windows over a Linux Desktop any day because it works in a way that is much more in line with how I want my computer to work. Your attitude seems to very much be "you're an idiot for still using Windows and Linux is great", which is condescending as hell. [0] I am by no means defendi…

Ahh, well no. I don't think Windows users are idiots. I think they're normal, non-technical people who don't want to drop to a terminal to pair their bluetooth earbuds because the BlueZ GUI was written in an afternoon by some rando and never worked right. But I do admit that for programmers , I don't understand why they'd want to still use Windows. I mean obviously there's reasons, but they're totally beyond me. Seem…

And using Linux Desktop seems like masochism to me. Why would I want to use an OS where I can't install applications to a different disk without recompiling them or otherwise jumping through a bunch of namespacing and filesystem overlay hoops?

There are reasons people make the choices they do and to assume that just because those reasons are beyond you that they are not reasonable is silly.

Post reply on HN