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antivirus false postives - let's do someting about it

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vlastimil:
Hi all,

I know it has been discussed here before - this problems with antivirus application (especially Norton Antivirus) are taking wild guesses and reporting problems that aren't there to users. Using pretty scary words like "malicious". And the users freak out. Block, Delete, Go away.

What happens? The user perceives the antivirus as their savior and the antivirus reputation goes up. They perceive the author of the accused software as a villain and are likely to never ever look at their software again. Some users, if they like the new application, decide to write to the author an email giving them a chance to explain it. But how many people would bother? It makes me angry each time I get such an email.

Let's do something about it

In my country it is illegal to hurt someone's business or good name by spreading lies and slander about them. In my opinion, this is exactly that. I am no lawyer, but I have no doubt these false antivirus reports have hurt honest people and caused monetary losses to commercial software authors or hurt the good name or brand of freeware authors.

I tried to communicate with Symantec in the past, but failed. They are not interested in this kind of talk, I did no even get an answer to my complaint. I am a small fish...

But if enough people join and cooperate, things can change. Let's start a facebook group or whatever is popular right now. Is there someone willing to lead? I'd like to participate!

mouser:
I agree with you, and had a specific idea that i'd like to get up and running by the end of the year:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=20810.0

Renegade:
If anyone wants to take the bull by the horns, I've got some domain names that I've wanted to do something with, but just don't have the time:

false-positive.com
scareware.net
scareware.org

They're all very appropriate.

In other news... Grrr... I installed the free version of AVG on my new box... It's more like malware now than ever. Pisses me off. I don't want a trillion f**king pieces of s**tware installed all over my computer... No. I don't want YET ANOTHER f**king toolbar... No. I don't want to change my f**king search page. No. I don't want to change my f**king about:blank page to f**king Yahoo s**t. F**K OFF! No. I don't want your f**king firewall. No... No. NO!

Grrr...

You may be able to tell that I'm a bit ticked. I think I need to try something else. I just hope that I can uninstall all the s**t it put on my computer.

cranioscopical:
Pisses me off. I don't want a trillion f**king pieces of s**tware installed all over my computer... No. I don't want YET ANOTHER f**king toolbar... No. I don't want to change my f**king search page. No. I don't want to change my f**king about:blank page to f**king Yahoo s**t. F**K OFF! No. I don't want your f**king firewall. No... No. NO!
-Renegade (October 06, 2010, 08:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, but apart from that how do you like it?  ;D

Glad to have the input because I was wondering about whether to try it.

Renegade:
Pisses me off. I don't want a trillion f**king pieces of s**tware installed all over my computer... No. I don't want YET ANOTHER f**king toolbar... No. I don't want to change my f**king search page. No. I don't want to change my f**king about:blank page to f**king Yahoo s**t. F**K OFF! No. I don't want your f**king firewall. No... No. NO!
-Renegade (October 06, 2010, 08:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, but apart from that how do you like it?  ;D

Glad to have the input because I was wondering about whether to try it.
-cranioscopical (October 06, 2010, 08:27 PM)
--- End quote ---

It only gets worse.

After the pricks change my about:blank page, they have a link in it:

How to disable search on this page
--- End quote ---

Notice that the link is:

avg.com/ww.special-toolbar-how-to-disable-search-tlbrc

But it goes to:

avg.com.au/home/

The proper text should be something like this:

How to unf**k this page... PSYCH~! NOT~!
--- End quote ---

It's just adding insult to injury.

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