Antivirus report

Your antivirus reports our product as virus? As you already guessed it is a false positive alarm.

False positive detections are on the rise with each passing year. We had some issues with AVG and Kaspersky in the past. In 2016 we received false positive alarms from Avira and Avasts and other free (and less reliable) antivirus products.

However, Google VirusTotal.com scanned our program with no less than 61 different antivirus products and it demonstrated it is safe. Here is the original scan on Google's VirusTotal.

What to do if your antivirus reports a false positive alarm for BioniX?

You can scan our product on Google VirusTotal. If more than half (30) antivirus products say it is a virus, then maybe indeed it is a virus :) But it never happened, it will never happen. We never had more than 6 false alarms at the same time.

1. Put Bionix in your antivirus White List. If you don't know how to do it, contact your antivirus customer support service.
2. Report the false positive alarm (to your antivirus customer support service) so it can be fixed for real. Most antivirus products have a dedicated channel for this. In most cases they will ask you to submit the "virused" file in a passport protected ZIP file.
3. Report it also to us. We need to know:

• the antivirus name
• the antivirus version
• the message you see (the virus name) - a screenshot is preferred
• BioniX version

Important addendum 2017!

So, how safe do you feel with your antivirus product?

Unfortunately, most users will answer 'safe' or 'very safe'. But only computer gurus really understand how poor is the 'AI' behind a commercial antivirus.... the subtle difference between 'is protected' and 'feel protected'. No matter what you say an antivirus is a commercial product and as any for-profit company they will make ANYTHING to sell the product.

Yes, but you see... my antivirus is freeware

If you really think that, then you don't know anything about Internet (and commerce generally). Some antivirus products give the impression that they are free. For example Avast pretends to be free, but if you read the small print it clearly says it is free for one year. Once you used it for one year they probably cough you and in the second year they pulled some money from you, because what the hell... you used it for one year and you liked it... and you are to lazy to look for another one anyway.

Other antivirus solutions pretend to be freeware but instead they give you a crippled version. You find out about that AFTER you install it and CANNOT uninstall it anymore. It happens to us with Comodo Antivirus. That piece of freeware crap was worst than a virus. We had to fight with their support almost 3 weeks. Finally we gave up and managed to manually uninstall all the shit they installed in our computers (including that shitty browser they forced down on our throat without asking).

Other are truly freeware but only because they are too small and 'under-the-table' to compete with solid products. These are not real antivirus products and they offer the same protection as a skin moisturizer cream in a strong desert sun.

Preferred quote of a modern antivirus: "We don't know what this is... but don't worry we protect you"

It is sad to see how over time the quality of antivirus products decreased drastically. No antivirus can keep up with the increasing number of available software products on Internet. What they do instead? They implement fast (and because of this weak) detection algorithms that classify any software that uses non-conventional programming technologies as 'possible threat'.  This results in an incredibly high rate of false-positive alarms. This is GOOD for the business (the company that produces the antivirus) but BAD for the user. How? Every time the antivirus blocks a program it shows an alarming red dialog box over the screen that says 'Program xyz is a possible threat. But don't worry we already deleted that piece of shit from your computer!'. The user is so relieved to hear that and really feels protected. But the truth is that in reality it was only disrupted from its work, not mentioning that the antivirus deleted a possible legal program from his computer without pre-approval (usually the viruses are doing that, right).

The technicalities behind of the "What the fuck is a possible threat"?

How many times have you seen this message: "Program xyz is a possible threat. But don't worry we protect you" ? When the antivirus says "possible threat" it really meant "we are not very sure about that", which the user should read it as "we have no clue if that program is a virus or not, it is only a program that uses some unusual programming techniques"... that actually means "well... the program is not a virus at all but we like raising these alarms because we have no clue and you feel safe".

How can YOU test it?

Take a totally legit program (for example take the Microsoft Paint) and do some 'unusual' things to it. For example pass it through a self compressing/decompressing program like UPX or ASP. And a self compressed program is not even that 'unusual' as you think.  Many programs (and when I say many, I say tens of millions) are doing this in order to get smaller (and therefore easy to download). Scan the program and... WTF?.... suddenly the program is a 'possible threat'. 

How are we so sure that every antivirus sucks?

Well, we are developers (reverse slang for 'the real shit'). We built BioniX and other 100% legit programs. So, what conclusions do a programmer draws when he writes few lines of code, compiles the code and pass the application through some antivirus programs that say 'possible threat'?

WTF? The program was just compiled (no time to get infected) in a safe environment (virtual machine) and its is totally safe (we know better than the antivirus because we developed it.. we put the 'guts' in it).

In Internet we trust (but we shouldn't)

Well, you should not trust the internet. Don't trust what others are saying. The regular Internet user is not more different than you. If their antivirus said 'Oh my god let's get the fuck out of here... its a virus' like your antivirus said, they will shout it on Internet, like you used to do. But now your smarter... right? All in all how do you make the difference between the rant of the 16 years old kid who 'grabbed' the Internet for 2 hours while his parents went out of the house in a hurry and forgot to lock the computer and a computer-literate? "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog".

How do you know what is good for your computer and what is bad? First of all don't rely only on your antivirus alone. Do some investigation about the program.

Use the logic as main weapon

Think that a commercial product, like BioniX, that is on the market for over 13 years has no interest in self-destroying its reputation. If a program is a REAL virus it won't survive out there more than one year. In the end users will complain about it, somebody in the antivirus company will MANUALLY flag the program as REAL threat and since no visitors will run through its site, in the end the program will die.

Why working in vain?

Think that a program as complex as BioniX can have in it close to 0.1 million lines of code? Why anybody will work so many years on such a program just to make it a prank?

Use the PR

Look at the popularity (Google Page Rank) of the web site that offers the product. For example BioniX Wallpaper has a PR=3. Which is quite good. PR 3 means that lots of web sites (thousands) are linking to us. A huge corporation like Toshiba has PR=7, for example. Sites with PR above 7 are extremely rare.

A company that spreads viruses will never have so many fans.

What's your source? OR "Don't go on that dark alley if you don't want to get ass-raped""

We do encounter so users of the bugger kind that complain about legit programs like BioniX as being virus but have no problems/complaints downloading illegal software from dubious web sites like Download.com/CNet.com (yes, CNet grabs legit programs like BioniX, insert adware into them and distribute the programs on their web sites) or even red-zone (like PirateBay).

The idea is very very simple, but still low minds don't have the neurons to grasp it: dark sites, dark software.

Why so many viruses on PirateBay?

When a crack is released for a certain software product, there is not much to do for the company that owns the software than to make a time-bomb and release it on dark sites as crack for their own product, in order to 'dilute' the power of the real crack. Legal? Probably no. Fair? Certainly yes.

Can you name it?

As we said, as long as your antivirus reports a program as 'possible' threat then it just fucking with your nerve and there is a microscopic chance that program is a real threat. However, it your antivirus can put a name on the threat (such as 'AV.BackDoor.Evelin#9284' then it is a bit more likely to be a real virus. However, don't get impressed by generic names such as 'Malw.Generic#2928" or "Pack.UPX.Generic" (read the topic about self packed ASP/UPX programs).

Do it on a large scale

If you really need to know if a program is virus or not, don't 'ask' the opinion of a single antivirus. Ask ALL of them. How to do it without installing 50 antivirus products in your computer? Use VirusTotal.com. Virus Total is an amazing a 3rd party service that scans your program with no less than 43 different antivirus products. If more than half of them are reporting the program as 'possible threat' and at least one quarter can also give you the exact name of the threat, then you could say that program is indeed suspicious (but still not 100% sure).

So, its is BioniX a virus or not?

September 2012: Due to an internal bug, AVG and Symantec antivirus detects BioniX Wallpaper as virus. (Note: Symantec doesn't report BioniX as being a 'true' virus but rather as 'possible problem'. But still... ). We contacted these companies immediately. AVG antivirus admitted it was a flaw in their product and after a while fixed the problem. With Symantec was more difficult. Their support was very unresponsive. In the end (it took quite a while) they fixed the problem also.

We submitted BioniX Wallpaper to virus total and 42 anti-virus products (all except Symantec) reported BioniX as 'clean and safe'. More and more people are reporting lots of false positives from Symantec/AVG.

Since 2012 no other antivirus reported BioniX as virus. Well... we expect the shit to happen again one day, but hey... few false positive alarm out of 60 is nothing!