How can I be sure that the software here is safe?
Secure Systems - Best Antivirus Solutions - False Positives
Keeping Your PC Secure
Irrespective of whether you use my software or not, please ensure your computer is always secure by adhering to the following:
1. Use a reputable security solution - look at the comparisons at http://www.av-test.org/ to pick the one of the best. My personal recommendation is Norton Security (don't hold on to the pre-2009 notions of it being inefficient and bloated). Always keep virus definitions up to date.
2. Use a secure operating system with the latest updates installed. If your hardware and budget allow, upgrade to Windows 10.
3. Always keep separate backups of irreplaceable files like photos, personal documents, etc. You will never know when your PC might get infected with a virus or your harddisk might fail. Remember: If you have only one copy of a file, it may as well not exist.
4. NEVER use pirated copies of software ESPECIALLY security software and the OS itself. If you do, assume that it is compromised and DO NOT use the system to create, store or access anything of value to you (like accessing your internet banking account - your credentials can be logged and stolen).
Picking one of the Best Antivirus Solutions
The best antivirus software maximize the identification of harmful files while minimizing the wrongful detection of safe files as being harmful (the technical term for this is false positives).
You might hear of people who claim that they switched from antivirus 'X' to antivirus 'Y' and 'Y' found several 'viruses' that 'X' never did. If this was used as a yard-stick, I can make the best antivirus solution in the world - it'll catch 100% of viruses. How? By detecting everything as being a virus. Obviously that's absurd, but I hope you get the point I am trying to make here.
Identifying False Positives
I had to make this page because of some sub-par antivirus solutions that have a high rate of false positives (something that fools people into thinking that an antivirus is effective) - people write to me asking about why their antivirus flagged my software thinking there is something wrong with my software.
If you happen to use one of these solutions, please go to http://www.virustotal.com/ and upload ANY file you may be suspicious of. VirusTotal will scan that file with over 60 different antivirus scanners and give you the results. Old files that get flagged by a very small percentage of the solutions (never including any of the big reliable names) are with 99% certainty false positives (particularly if the detection contains words like Generic/Gen [as opposed to specific] or Suspicious/Sus).
Furthermore, most major download sites check files before copying it over to their own sites and listing them - and all my software are listed at cnet Download.com.
What if you use a solution reporting a false positive?
If the solution does not rank highly at http://www.av-test.org/, I'd recommend dumping it and getting a better one.
Else, you can report it to the vendor and have them manually check the file(s) under consideration. (Since the problem lies with their software and since you are their customer, you will need to take it up with them or wait for someone else using the same solution to do so - it is not practical for me to liaise with 40+ vendors).
Here is an example of a DiskMax user liasing with Comodo to get them to fix their definitions: http://forums.comodo.com/av-false-positivenegative-detection-reporting/diskmax-false-positive-t70743.0.html

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