Website Safety?

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DustyWarthog
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Website Safety?

Post by DustyWarthog »

Hello all. I am new to these forums, but was advised by my (normally-not-so-uptight) anti-virus protection program that the forums websites were harmful. Surely there must be other users who have experienced the same thing? What's the problem? Do you know?

I specifically allowed the website to be able to post this message of course. But I am afraid other warnings might pop up in the future. And I don't feel comfortable about it at all. Wonder what could happen.

Regards. BfW is truly a great game!
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Iris
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Iris »

Did you use the http version (which some legacy links still point to) or the https version? Can you post an exact screenshot of the message?
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Tad_Carlucci
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

No idea why an anti-virus program would complain about a web site.

My extremely up-tight, highly paranoid (but it aint paranoia, when you know for a fact they really are out to get you) security systems have no problems with any Wesnoth site or service.

That said, I have heard of some old and/or off-the-wall anti-virus programs making some pretty ridiculous false claims. When I see them, I usually take that as my cue to update the afflicted computer.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Pentarctagon »

What anti-virus software?
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DustyWarthog
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Location: Denmark

Re: Website Safety?

Post by DustyWarthog »

Thanks for your replies.

I use the default anti-virus program from my internet supplier. The program is from F-secure.

Now that I have allowed this website to load, I can't grab a screenshot of the message, but It just blocked the site from loading and warned that it was a harmful website. Perhaps I can deactivate it and get the warning again, but its message is just that: "Harmful website". No further explaining. I reached the forums from the wesnoth.org website (https://www.wesnoth.org/). I can see that it uses the https link.

I was just curious if anybody else have had similar experiences, that's all. I can't believe I'm the only one, whatever av program I use.
Tad_Carlucci
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

F-secure appears to have a reputation for false positives.
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DustyWarthog
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Joined: October 1st, 2012, 11:17 am
Location: Denmark

Re: Website Safety?

Post by DustyWarthog »

But clearly something on forums.wesnoth.org must have triggered it?

I have always used F-secure and these blockings very rarely pops up, except for obviously unsafe sites. Just saying.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Pentarctagon »

You could perhaps disallow this site again, or maybe there's more information logged somewhere from the previous warning, but otherwise just "Harmful website" is nowhere near enough information for us to be able to do anything(assuming it's actually something valid rather than a false positive).
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs
take one down, patch it around
-2,147,483,648 little bugs in the code
DustyWarthog
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by DustyWarthog »

well, now you know.

I'll let the thread hang around and hope other users with similar experiences comes by and shares.

In the meantime I'll try to mine the av-program log or something. Laterz.
enclave
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by enclave »

I think that if there is such a "harmful website" message for anyone else out there, then they either would have reported it long time ago, or never reported at all (since you have to allow the "harmful" site to report it). Therefore the only hope to find out if it's your antivirus being hacked/malfunctions or the wesnoth site has security issues is on your shoulders DustyWarthog :) from details you have given I don't think that anyone can test anything.. there is just not enough information. My personal experience with "non-branded" anitivirus softwares is that they actually are a virus themselves... so if you can use other antivirus from huge company (for example avast is free), it would be much better. I wouldn't be surprised if you live somewhere in slightly outlaw country and your internet provider just provided you with fake antivirus just to spy on you :D joking.. or not.. not sure.. shows you live in Denmark, I don't think they do it there.. anyway I havent had any security warnings from wesnoth site. But I'm not sure what could harm you here if you don't use it to store any highly personal and sensitive information such as your real name, address, bank account etc..
gnombat
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by gnombat »

Google's Safe Browsing service reports "No unsafe content found".

https://transparencyreport.google.com/s ... oth.org%2F
Tad_Carlucci
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Re: Website Safety?

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

F-Secure is out of Helsinki, which probably explains why you got it for free.

I'd never heard of it before so I checked their products out. Frankly, you can do a **LOT** better with virtually any of the name-brand products. It looks like F-Secure is just a basic anti-virus scanner with a password manager, and VPN available.

I guess that's good enough if you're just doing some web surfing, email and playing online games. I would suggest checking you're using a fairly recent router with UPnP *DISABLED*, NAT and a firewall, and that you're running macOS, Linux or Windows 10 build 1809 showing it's up-to-date.

If you want to be a little more secure, there's a lot more you can do. And, as I said earlier, that one false-positive from F-Secure would be enough for me to kick them to the curb.
I forked real life and now I'm getting merge conflicts.
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