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itch.io Community » itch.io » Questions & Support

Game file marked as virus when downloading

A topic by SAVVU Games created Mar 06, 2020 Views: 5,022 Replies: 10
Viewing posts 1 to 4
SAVVU Games4 years ago

Hey everyone,

I develop mobile games and decided to port all of them for PC as well. A couple of days ago I published here on Itch.io the first one but run inti a problem. When downloading the .zip file my PC warns me about a virus but that cant be true. I have run several Antivirus programs on my PC and it is definitely clean so there couldnt be a virus when exporting my game ( I use Unity and the infected file is the games .exe file).

I also uploaded the file to VirusTotal.com and below is the result..as you see there is only one detection so it surelly is a false alarm!

Despite that all players who want the game will get a notification about a virus and so they wont continue the download.

Is there anyone with the same problems that could suggest me a solution on how to get the file clean?

Thank you!

Reply
JeffWeber4 years ago

I have this same exact problem with my game: https://jeffweber.itch.io/just-flip-demo

It really sucks and I have no idea to prevent this from happening.

Reply
SAVVU Games4 years ago(+1)

I think I solved it by myself! Until now I used 7zip to zip my files and thought that maybe this was the problem.

Without changing anything I zipped my file using WinZip and uploaded again. Just like magic the problem is now gone...no virus warning anymore!

Try the same thing and I am sure it will work. If you want download my game and please let me know if the download is completed without problem!

Link: https://savvu-games.itch.io/fruity-lips-endless-2d-runner

Reply
JeffWeber4 years ago

Hmmm, well I still get this when I download your game. The same thing happens to my game.  I think it's a windows 10 defender thing because the exe is from an un-known publisher.  It really sucks there is no easy way to avoid this.



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SAVVU Games4 years ago

So when downloading you get no warning? Does Windows defender say this when you click on the .exe to play or after the download? If after clicking to play you could make changes to the protection level inside of the windows defender

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firecat4 years ago(+2)

That appears because there isnt enough data or people using it, once it gets to a certain amount of users it will stop showing up, Microsoft made it a long time ago to warn users of unknown software. This is easy to fix by digitally signing the distributed software (i do not know how you do that in unity). The signing certificate can also effect the threat level so if you want to bypass it you need to officially do it and not make one up.

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JeffWeber4 years ago

I did here that if enough use it then it'll stop showing.  

My game demo (https://jeffweber.itch.io/just-flip-demo) has over 500 DL's and it still happens.  Problem is a lot of people probably aren't playing it because they get this warning.

I understand I can get it digitally assigned but from what I understand it's not easy and not cheap. Unless there is an indie friendly way of doing it.

-Jeff

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JeffWeber4 years ago

It happens when you click the exe. 

I know I can fix it on my machine, the issue is other folks downloading my game see that and think it's a virus.

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SAVVU Games4 years ago

Yes I read about that signing but how is it that other games that are just released work just fine without any problem?

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JeffWeber4 years ago

Yeah, that is the part I don't understand either.

Reply
Chilled Out Software4 years ago(+1)

Yes I had the same problem today with my first widows game. On my test download my virus software quarantined the file and removed it from downloads without any option.

Your comment about WinZip helped. I WinZiped the exe and to be on the safe side I categorised it as other rather than a windows executable.

Downloaded OK and the antivirus ignored it. Just a warning on the download that the file is from an unknown publisher.

Thanks for the tip.

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