I’m having this very annoying issue with my Unity3D built game and Norton Antivirus 2010. When building windows exe with custom file-icons, Norton AV reports that it behaves like a virus, and guarantines it.
How to reproduce:
Create empty project and add empty scene to it.
Add icons to it from Player Settings. (Without icons its free from viruses)
Build
Run - And the “norton sonar” pops up, and says that it has taken the exe to guarantine.
This all works with other antivirus software, like F-Secure and AVG.
So to get the same results, you must install this trial version of Norton antivirus 2010, install latest updates, and reboot (you have to reboot to get this reproduced, eaven thought that installer does not require it).
I also tried to create exe without icon, and change the icon with two different softwares (XN Resource Editor and Icon Changer), but the results are the same.
Oh, and one more thing. If you run the exe before you have Norton installed, it all works, because Norton thinks its trusted file since you have already used it, and does not check it. So you must build the exe after having norton installed / run existing exe file first time.
I think its a bug in Norton Antivirus software. But I thought that it would be good to write this down, if someone else is fighting with the same issue. (I spent a whole day for hunting this down.)
I’m sorry to say but if you install the only commercially sold virus (with the by far largest false positive rate off all AVs on the market) you have to expect such fictive issues. There is no problem with unity or security at all in this case, just total missbehavior of norton, as usual
But when selling the game to ordinary people, they tend to have this kind of software pre-installed on their machines.
And its a big problem when they demand their money back or when they start writing forums that this companys makes viruses.
I think this issue is something that maybe Unity should negotiate with Norton. If every one of us start complaining to Norton, we all have to go throught the same painfull process, and delay our product launch for a months maybe. (I’ve heard that there is somekind of white-list system - but its not a real solution to this)
UT can’t do anything about Norton being bugged and crapped like shit, nor can you do.
The one and only solution is reverting what should never have happened in first place: uninstall it.
You will have to face it the same way as all others: FAQ entries that cover the common “super troublemakers” and consider adding a corresponding note that all your releases are checked through XX (some real antivirus solution)
Of course they can. They can (and should) report any false positives to Symantec and have it removed ASAP. All antivirus companies have this facility and Symantec are no different in this regard.
The original poster can probably do the same thing, but it would be better coming from the actual developer, which in this case is really UT.
That though doesn’t change anything to the problem.
It might work as a temporal solution to have one specific version of Unity being “white listed”.
It could and would only work if it is caused by the exe itself none of the assemblies though
Norton has likely hundreds to thousands of provided “Unity virus finds” in their DB and as we see their architects go through and are incapable to correctly whitelist software thats known to be virus and malware free, as its commonly done.
Reporting false positive to a AV creator is something required for niche software, not for something where the editor side has been downloaded over a hundred thousand times and where the compiled games likely have been executed on hundreds of thousands to millions of machines.
I agree with this guy (and everyone else who said it). As for having the developer (Unity) speak to Norton and get it removed from being flagged as a virus…good luck with that. At a previous employer they went that route and it was never changed on Norton’s end.
Have to say that all the Norton hate is getting a bit old. It’s not been a CPU-hog for ages. It’s been running amazingly smooth on my computer for 4+ years now and I’ve had zero, zip, nada, none problems with it at all.
I don’t even notice it’s there unless I tell it to do something. Or if I go idle for the 5 minutes I’ve set it up to. I often look at it’s logs and it says it’s been doing this and that 50 seconds ago or 5 minutes ago, and I didn’t notice it doing anything at all. Even while playing online games I never notice it.
I’ve also seen 1 single false-positive that annoyed med in 4+ years, and it was fixed within 12 hours.
I’m sorry, but every time I hear people talk like this about Norton, they’ve usually not tried it since the 1990s.
This is not about what Antivirus software I use, or you use, or what AV is recommended.
This is a issue that affects all developers when distributing our games. When selling casual games, end users just get pissed if bought game does not work and they blaim you. They dont send you an email saing “this games is virus, what do I do?”. They mark it zero or one star, and write review that “ITS A VIRUS, DONT DOWNLOAD IT AND AVOID ALL PRODUCTS FROM THIS COMPANY IN FUTURE!!”.
I really hope that Unity staff will pick this up and resolve this issue with norton. There is something in Unity code, that makes Norton to alert. And that is something that we dont get to see.
Guru: Thank you for sharing this about white-listing. So we should not have high hopes on that route.
I encourage any users who own norton antivirus, or who are somehow affected by this to also fill out the form. If they get enough volume perhaps they can sort this out.
I wouldn’t transform this thread into a AV battle but… I must say that I abandoned Norton in 2002 after understanding that it was an octopus eating my machine.
After that, it became more and more price unfriendly with no reason: there were free valid alternatives around.
And now there are MORE free good alternatives. Or almost free.
Why spend so much for Norton? Also most of what you pay is for their marketing office…
wrong buy a mac solution to any problem. Also i wouldnt put it past most of these well known anti virus companies to work with MS to make damn viruses. I use avg ive scaned my puter which is xp. nuthing is seen stop looking at porn and maybe things wont show up as a virus ive used unity for quite a while. I havent made anything but ive used it and not one time has it showed up as a virus. Calm down format reinstall back up and scan it again without Norton Virus vault.
Why would you possibly use Norton? I tried it for a week and vomited with rage. In fact, once I uninstalled it, I noticed an increase in virus gathering straight away.
%100 true. I use avira antivirus free, and have been free of all viruses for a while now.
wrong, macs are just as prone to viruses, they just don’t have as big of a user base so less viruses are made.
In our tests, it really requires custom icon. I have tested this with four pc:s, and in all it works without custom icon, but not with it.
To go eaven further, you can build a “clean” exe without icon and it works, but if you use some external software to add icon to that exe, then sonar detects it as a virus again.
That would at least make sense. I get same problem if i try to run unity standalone player right as it comes out of Visual Studio build. Same thing.
I’ll be naive and try to get in contact with their support.