this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Most antivirus I tested, even the paid ones, are so annoying with popups and complaining about cracks that I just take the risk and go without em

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[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 76 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 36 points 4 months ago

You're not going to find an AV that doesn't flag modifications as virus/malware. That's kind of the definition of malicious behaviour by a program.

Hell, Windows itself will overwrite changes you make to certain exscutables/dll's, etc, with its own file protection system.

Test your cracks in a VM. Then use them as needed, or do the cracking in a VM.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How do you know they're false positives?

[–] vegeta@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Windows defender claimed they're bad because they are cracks, and doesn't mention any reason it thinks that would be a virus/trojan or something I dont want

"HackTool:Win32/crack" from games downloaded on fitgirl repacks site (the correct one)

[–] elfpie 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that a matter of behavior? The crack is doing something expected from a crack and the system warns you because most wouldn't use it without being aware. If you really trust the file, add it as an exception.

Or do you want a software that can vet good cracks from bad cracks?

[–] dactylotheca@suppo.fi 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I think the point is that it's a bit silly to classify cracks as malware

[–] 0xtero 12 points 4 months ago

Enterprise antivirus products have had PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) category forever. Seems its categorized as "HackTool" so not malware.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago

Cracks modify executables...classic malware/virus behaviour. Almost the definition of malware.

Which is why windows uses a file protection system since at least XP

[–] MrAlternateTape@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not at all, a crack does something to an executable file that you use. Malware would do the exact same thing.

[–] dactylotheca@suppo.fi 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

But you generally want that crack to do something to an executable. Do antivirus etc. tools just heuristically flag everything that looks like it modifies an executable? Lots of legitimate dev tools do that too, so it seems like it'd give a lot of false positives, but I haven't used Windows in ages so 🤷

[–] MrAlternateTape@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, how is the system supposed to know that you want the crack to do something to that executable? The anti virus just sees something is happening and flags it. It does not see a difference.

[–] dactylotheca@suppo.fi 1 points 4 months ago

I definitely get what you mean, I just have no idea if antivirus tools flag anything that looks like it modifies executables. My edit to the comment you're replying to may not have propagated to your instance yet, so here's what I added:

Do antivirus etc. tools just heuristically flag everything that looks like it modifies an executable? Lots of legitimate dev tools do that too, so it seems like it'd give a lot of false positives, but I haven't used Windows in ages so 🤷

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 8 points 4 months ago

Windows defender only lets you whitelist by file, folder, or process. You could whitelist a specific folder, but if you want to whitelist by category you'll have to use a different antivirus product.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 14 points 4 months ago

https://virustotal.com/

Most antivirus software is more sketchy than random cracks.

[–] mr_right@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

i don't think that's possible mate for 2 reasons :

  • software companys pay antivirus software makers to flag and remove game cracks
  • cracks use obfuscation and workaround techniques that are similar to whats used in viruses so most flag them as mallisious
[–] OfficerBribe@lemm.ee 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

So what you are saying you want a shitty AV that would not recognize a potentially malicious executable? Any normal AV should flag crack as a potential threat due to what it does.

Stick with Defender and whitelist executables you trust. This is computing 101.

[–] BlanK0@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If u are on Linux I recommend using firejail on the executable

[–] stuckgum@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago

Obviously he is not on linux

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just don't use one. Just don't download anything dodgy and you're golden.

[–] OsaErisXero@kbin.run 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They just said they were downloading arbitrary binaries to execute

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] OsaErisXero@kbin.run 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

He's downloading cracks or cracked executables

The cracking groups aren't exactly signing their work with a verifiable public key

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yeah but that should be okay as long as he's getting it from legitimate places (rarbg, official fitgirl site, cs.rin.ru, rutracker etc).

I've not had an AV for like 10+ years, had defender disabled with GPO as soon as I installed W10 and had no issues.

The best AV is your brain. Obviously if you download GTA_6 _(Brazil)_by_xP3tYa1337x.pdf.html with an embedded .hta directly from an IP address in Kamchatka and you have IE installed then yeah maybe you need to give things a manual scan pass with defender or malwarebytes (or just toss it in a VM) once in a while but otherwise you're golden.

Even most vulns today labeled 0day are either unexploitable or require the user to be a dumb motherfucker.

Trust me.

[–] zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago

probably I will be punished for this comment but: Kaspersky
second best AV is Malwarebytes,
there is a subreddit for ranking them r/antivirus or something

[–] aldalire@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 months ago

ClamAV is an open source antivirus

https://github.com/Cisco-Talos/clamav

[–] rockhandle@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

You're not going to find an antivirus that isn't intrusive because that is their entire duty. However, Kaspersky has a very high malware detection rate compared to other AV solutions

[–] Seabyte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago

I haven't used an Antivirus in years... That's one advantage of GNU OS's. I run cracks inside sandboxes which then run Wine and DXVK for compatibility.

[–] Teknikal@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I sometimes think about disabling defender I think theres a site that can do it. Downside is it'll probably break windows but yeah it annoys me it's always wasting my battery plus yeah it throws fits over things like cracks

Last time I was mad enough to think about this it wasn't even a crack it was Autohotkey it didn't like.

[–] MajesticFlame@lemmy.one 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I use ESET and rate of false positives is very low for me (as long as you disable detect "potentially unwanted applications", it asks during installation).