I get a warning that the software I have downloaded is not safe or contains a virus, spyware or adware.

After downloading software from our website you may get a warning from your anti-virus software that the download is a security risk and you are advised not to open it.

If using Norton (other AV systems may be similar) you may be told that the file has been quarantined because of WS.Reputation.1 or similar.

WS.Reputation.1 is not a virus, malware, spyware or other threat. It indicates only a file that has a low reputation score. Symantec gathers information from users that enables them to assess how many times the file has been downloaded since it was last updated. A file that has not been used by many users is given a low reputation score. With our software there are globally very few users as it is a niche product, and hence it attracts a low reputation score, particularly if an update has been released recently.

Symantec (Norton) say this about it “WS.Reputation.1 is a detection for files that have a low reputation score based on analyzing data from Symantec’s community of users and therefore are likely to be security risks. Detections of this type are based on Symantec’s reputation-based security technology. Because this detection is based on a reputation score, it does not represent a specific class of threat like adware or spyware, but instead applies to all threat categories.”

We take steps to ensure our software when downloaded is safe. All software is digitally signed and if tampered with the signature will not be valid. The signature status can be checked by right-clicking on the file.

Further, all software when uploaded is given a unique code computed from the file when uploaded. If the file is tampered with the code will change and the website will not make available for download any file that does not match the stored hash when it was uploaded.

None of our software incorporates adware or sypware.