"Norton Internet Security" says MyDefrag 4.2.x is a "Security Risk" but it's not

[b5surfer]

After downloading MyDefrag 4.2.1 from the MyDefrag site today, Norton Internet Security displayed message "Security Risk, mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe, A program was behaving suspiciously on your computer. You chose to block and remove it."  It then automatically deleted my download.

I think that this new Norton software is being overly cautious BUT now I will always have doubts as to whether MyDefrag is totally safe and adfree etc.?

[Win 7 x64 final version]

[Henno]

Norton Internet Security has a tendency of being overly problematic aswell...

 

reg, Henno.

[jeroen]

Thanks for the report, I appreciate it. I have immediately added Norton to the My virusscanner says MyDefrag is infected! page. Needless to say that MyDefrag absolutely free of any kind of virus, trojan, backdoor, spyware, rootkit, malware, or anything else nasty. You check this for yourself with the links on the page to the "Virus Total" and "Jotti's Malware Scancheck" websites, they will check your download with a long list of virus scanners. I have done so myself just now and the MyDefrag download does not show anything at all. Did you download from the MyDefrag website?

[b5surfer]

jeroen,

Thanks for your response.  I need to make it clear, so you can update the page where you list the virus scanners, that Norton Internet Security does not complain about mydefrag.exe -- it's the installer mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe file that it says is "behaving suspiciously" and won't allow to run.  Norton does not have a problem with mydefrag.exe (although it does not have "Norton Trusted" level yet).

Yes, I did download it from the MyDefrag website.  After turning off Norton scanning, which takes a while to figure how to do that , I was able to install MyDefrag and run it OK.  One has to turn off a feature called "SONAR Protection" for 15 minutes or so.

Norton Insight has these "application ratings" that are based on a number of factors.  I have marked mydefrag.exe and mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe as "trusted" so that might help in a little way.  Maybe we just need more users to be using MyDefrag and then there will be no issues

Thanks,
Brian

[jeroen]

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Yes, I understood that Norton Internet Security complained about the installer "mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe" program.

p.s. Symantec has a defragmenter of their own, the Norton Utilities. I am not a suspicious person and I am sure it's just a big coincidence that only Norton Internet Security is blocking MyDefrag, and not any other virus checker.

[b5surfer]

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Yes, I understood that Norton Internet Security complained about the installer "mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe" program.

p.s. Symantec has a defragmenter of their own, the Norton Utilities. I am not a suspicious person and I am sure it's just a big coincidence that only Norton Internet Security is blocking MyDefrag, and not any other virus checker.

Norton Utilities does not even work under Windows 7 yet (32-bit or 64-bit).  So they're a little behind there.  They say they'll be releasing a fix soon.  I won't be using their defragger though now that MyDefrag seems to work so well.

I think, that based on the way that Norton "trust" appears to work, is that very few Norton Internet Security users have used mydefrag.exe and, in particular, mydefrag-v4.2.1.exe so their system has no way of knowing whether it's "safe" or not.

[b5surfer]

jeroen,

A couple of updates. 

1. As I raised the issue that Norton Internet Security 2010 had with identifying the MyDefrag installer as a "Security Risk", I submitted it to Symantec as a "false positive".  Symantec got back to me today and said "In light of further investigation and analysis Symantec is happy to remove this detection from within its products. The updated detection will be distributed in the next set of virus definitions, available daily, or weekly via LiveUpdate, depending on Symantec product version..."  So hopefully these false positives will go away soon.

2. Norton Utilities v14.5.  It does now support Windows 7 but the Defragmenter in it is not a Norton product -- the menu option just runs the basic MS Windows 7 "Disk Defragmenter" (which has a lot less features than MyDefrag).

[jeroen]

Thanks for taking the action and for the feedback, I appreciate it. Symantec is a little bit slow.... since version 4.2.1 there have been 4 new MyDefrag versions, and I have not had any reports about those version being blocked.

[Rosemarry]

Thanks for taking the action and for the feedback, I appreciate it. Symantec is a little bit slow.... since version 4.2.1 there have been 4 new MyDefrag versions, and I have not had any reports about those version being blocked.

Discussions are always the main source of accurate information and to ensure a comfortable results, you can get immediate and reliable information, which will definitely help you in every area of your concern. Thanks for sharing....