Why do mods give viruses? [Solved]

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anakinfang
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Why do mods give viruses? [Solved]

Post by anakinfang »

when i get mods or maps for swbf2,swbf1 my dads cpu gets virus. does anyone know safe mods are or sites are.
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Re: why do mods give virues?

Post by Dakota »

filefront is the best one. it has many games and so far i have downloaded over 25 GB of mods and no viruses at all.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by anakinfang »

well i got them from swbf2.file front and some on moddb and game toast.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Dakota »

are you sure it is from the mods? also what security system do you have (in any)?
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Teancum »

The fact is that if someone infected uploads a file it's possible their infection carries on. It's not the website's fault. But even then I can count on one hand (with a few fingers missing) the number of times I've downloaded a mod with a virus in my 10+ years of PC gaming. And each of those times I've had proper virus protection to detect it. Virus protection should always be set to active scan to find something before it actually can infect. Don't know if that's how you have your set.

But yeah, as someone who works in IT (Information Technology) there are two things that account for 95% of infections: piracy and porn. Game mods aren't something you'll get infected from. The virus must have come from elsewhere.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by anakinfang »

my dad has immunet and nortan
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by AceMastermind »

The only reason I see you think you are getting viruses from maps/mods is that your anti-virus software is probably throwing false positives towards self-extracting archives(*.exe). Are these the type of files that give you problems? Those files are generally safe and many people use them to compress their maps/mods so you don't necessarily need the same software installed to extract them.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by MrMuffins »

AceMastermind wrote:The only reason I see you think you are getting viruses from maps/mods is that your anti-virus software is probably throwing false positives towards self-extracting archives(*.exe).
Yes, I recently made a game and used the winrars self-extracting program to compress the game and make it easier to dl and extract.
However testing the download link on my own server on a computer with Norton installed resulted in it detecting it as a virus and deleting it...
My laptop with avg detected nothing, and my desktop with another anti-virus saw nothing either.

So just wanna point that out and agree with ^^above here this could very well be the case, also since you mentioned norton.... (:
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by sim-al2 »

FYI Norton is suddenly HORRIBLE for false positives with self-extracting archives. I don't understand because for years it was fine but then one update came out and it just broke everything. The only thing you can really do is write down the name of the file before you download it and add it to the exceptions.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Teancum »

sim-al2 wrote:FYI Norton is suddenly HORRIBLE for false positives with self-extracting archives. I don't understand because for years it was fine but then one update came out and it just broke everything. The only thing you can really do is write down the name of the file before you download it and add it to the exceptions.
I disagree. I've used Norton (now called Symantec) for years and have never had it falsely detect something in a self extracting exe - neither at home nor at work. AVG Antivirus on the other hand has issues like that.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by THEWULFMAN »

Perhaps you can give us a list of the mods you have downloaded so we can check ourselves? I seriously doubt we will find a single virus.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by anakinfang »

1 conversion pack
2 marvel4 conversion
3 some others map i forgot
4 the eaw mod return of the clones 1.3 made my dads cpu clean install.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by sim-al2 »

Teancum wrote:
sim-al2 wrote:FYI Norton is suddenly HORRIBLE for false positives with self-extracting archives. I don't understand because for years it was fine but then one update came out and it just broke everything. The only thing you can really do is write down the name of the file before you download it and add it to the exceptions.
I disagree. I've used Norton (now called Symantec) for years and have never had it falsely detect something in a self extracting exe - neither at home nor at work. AVG Antivirus on the other hand has issues like that.
Mine still does. I don't use the computer that it's on much now that I have my own but I got truly tired of restoring .exes, and of course a few files it just auto-deletes. Maybe it was my version or my dad messed with the settings but honestly it was crippling in usage terms.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Twilight_Warrior »

anakinfang wrote:1 conversion pack
Nope. No viruses.
anakinfang wrote:2 marvel4 conversion
These are clean, too.
anakinfang wrote:3 some others map i forgot
Perhaps you should go find out before posting? That might help.
anakinfang wrote:4 the eaw mod return of the clones 1.3 made my dads cpu clean install.
And what does that have to do with
anakinfang wrote:when i get mods or maps for swbf2,swbf1
?
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by anakinfang »

well thew conmversion pack slowed my dads cpu down he had to use nortan power eraser.
one of the maps were bespin industry.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Dakota »

hmm now i am wondering how mech harddrive space you have, since some of those mods convo pack) can take up some room if you have a small or nearly filled up computer. having less space on a harddrive can slow down the computer. could you check the space left on harddrive (drive C)?
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by anakinfang »

My dads cpu has 74 gb
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by Dakota »

anakinfang wrote:My dads cpu has 74 gb
ok thats good (if that is how much free space that it has left)

also the computer nerd in me will destroy me if i don't tell you that a CPU is the processor and the Hard Drive is what you are meaning.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by linksith »

anakinfang wrote:my dad has immunet and nortan

Woah!!! does your dad have both antiviruses on the same computer????? if he does, that is definitely not smart having two ani-virus programs on the same system. I would recommend keeping norton and getting rid of the other one or getting a new antivurus program such as Eset smart security 4 (not free) or AVG (get the free version) or Microsoft security Essentials (free) or getting Norton Internet Security 2011 (not free).
sim-al2 wrote:
Teancum wrote:
sim-al2 wrote:FYI Norton is suddenly HORRIBLE for false positives with self-extracting archives. I don't understand because for years it was fine but then one update came out and it just broke everything. The only thing you can really do is write down the name of the file before you download it and add it to the exceptions.
I disagree. I've used Norton (now called Symantec) for years and have never had it falsely detect something in a self extracting exe - neither at home nor at work. AVG Antivirus on the other hand has issues like that.
Mine still does. I don't use the computer that it's on much now that I have my own but I got truly tired of restoring .exes, and of course a few files it just auto-deletes. Maybe it was my version or my dad messed with the settings but honestly it was crippling in usage terms.
Ok Norton has a new version out and the Maximum PC magazine ranks it as the best. it is also named Norton Internet Security 2011, not Symantic. I would put Eset smart security 4 at 2nd best.
Dakota wrote:
anakinfang wrote:My dads cpu has 74 gb
ok thats good (if that is how much free space that it has left)

also the computer nerd in me will destroy me if i don't tell you that a CPU is the processor and the Hard Drive is what you are meaning.
The CPU has a constant speed but when the hard drive gets cluttered up, the computer has a harder time finding files on the hard drive disk. Also, defragmenting the drive would help the hard drive out a bit.

It is an odd thing that your getting viruses from the downloaded mods. Are you sure their not coming from other websites? I can remember when I went to a star wars lego website and got a few viruses from it.
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Re: Why do mods give viruses?

Post by sim-al2 »

Symantec is the company that makes Norton. :P
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