Halo for the 2600 Released at CGE! Download the game here!

[RevEng]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

They really should be taken to task for this, especially as it appears they are just blanket labeling all such files as dangerous.  I'm sure there are other extensions they are targeting as well. 

AV is the scourge of open source projects, for the last decade or two. The cost of false positives is externalised to the open source devs, who are asked to  prove to several vendors that each and every new project release doesn't, in fact, contain a virus. Or you buy an expensive developer certificate, which lasts for a year, and still doesn't help with all AV engines.

 

I'm not happy to see the AV scourge spread to our retro platforms that cannot have viruses.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Yes, the file is safe, it seems Chrome and Firefox are now making any files ending with a .bin extension as having a virus or malware, which is patently ridiculous, since none of those files here fall into those categories, yet these browsers are stating emphatically that the files are dangerous and contain a virus or malware. 

If browsers are that stupid, maybe we should start using only .a26 instead?

[Albert]

43 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

If browsers are that stupid, maybe we should start using only .a26 instead?

Yeah, either that or zipping everything.  That won't help with the many thousands of existing .bin files from the past 20+ years, though.  I'm not very happy that these browsers are making these patently false statements, I don't really know how they can get away with that. 

 

 ..Al

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I wondered what was up as Chrome has been blocking all of the WIP stuff I've got in PMs for testing games. I basically have to click on the download history link on the blocked message where the downloaded file will then show and I have the option to keep the untrusted file. But making that option only available in the download history link and only when the popup comes up is pretty nasty in my eyes.

 

[Albert]

14 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I wondered what was up as Chrome has been blocking all of the WIP stuff I've got in PMs for testing games. I basically have to click on the download history link on the blocked message where the downloaded file will then show and I have the option to keep the untrusted file. But making that option only available in the download history link and only when the popup comes up is pretty nasty in my eyes.

Agreed, it's extremely hostile, especially given the statement that these files contain a virus or malware, which is false.  But many people aren't going to know that, and will be potentially scared away from downloading these files.

 

It might be possible to target files posted in, say, the 2600-related forums that have .bin extensions and rename them to .a26 (checking first to make sure .a26 files are also not being flagged), but you run the risk of renaming files that aren't actually 2600 binaries.  Again, given there are thousands of these files, it's not a trivial matter, especially if you don't want to just mass rename the files without a human involved to make sure files aren't incorrectly renamed.

 

 ..Al

[+Nathan Strum]

I'll admit I haven't noticed this, since I'm still running Safari under Ventura, and they haven't made that sort of change (yet...). Give 'em a couple of days though, and I'm sure Apple will find a way to make it even worse than the other browsers.  

[Zoyx]

16 hours ago, Jaks43 said:

Hey, all! I'm new here and just wanted to check out the game, but when I go to download it, Chrome blocks it and claims it is dangerous and contains a virus. Is this just Chrome being extra safe and not wanting me to download untrusted files, or is there actually a risk here?

Firefox lets you proceed to download after it gives you a warning. I recommend using this browser for this. It's the workaround that I use.

[Albert]

20 minutes ago, Nathan Strum said:

I'll admit I haven't noticed this, since I'm still running Safari under Ventura, and they haven't made that sort of change (yet...). Give 'em a couple of days though, and I'm sure Apple will find a way to make it even worse than the other browsers.  

No doubt, there's a reason I don't use Safari. 

 

 ..Al

[Albert]

16 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

Firefox lets you proceed to download after it gives you a warning. I recommend using this browser for this. It's the workaround that I use.

Yeah, I use Firefox as my primary browser, and it's very slightly better than Chrome in this regard, but it's still showing the alarming message you when you try to download these files.

 

 ..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I am using Vivaldi and get no such warning. Probably I disabled it for .bin some time ago. 

Edited March 6 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

4 hours ago, Albert said:

Yeah, either that or zipping everything.  That won't help with the many thousands of existing .bin files from the past 20+ years, though.  I'm not very happy that these browsers are making these patently false statements, I don't really know how they can get away with that. 

 

 ..Al

 

It's truly annoying, I've turned off the option in my Firefox as I just couldn't take it any more.

 

Just uncheck 'Block dangerous download' in Settings -> Privacy & Security if you're confident in your ability to spot dangerous downloads.

 

- James

 

[Albert]

I'm probably going to have to put up a notice on the front page of the forums to let people know that, "No, these files do NOT contain viruses or malware" and explain how to download the files, as well as disable this garbage entirely if you are comfortable doing so.

 

 ..Al

[+x=usr(1536)]

10 hours ago, Albert said:

Yes, the file is safe, it seems Chrome and Firefox are now making any files ending with a .bin extension as having a virus or malware, which is patently ridiculous, since none of those files here fall into those categories, yet these browsers are stating emphatically that the files are dangerous and contain a virus or malware.  They really should be taken to task for this, especially as it appears they are just blanket labeling all such files as dangerous.  I'm sure there are other extensions they are targeting as well. 

 

 ..Al

 

For anyone who may be curious, some impromptu testing of this was done here recently, and it really does appear as though it's just the file extension they're going by.  Check the following thread for info; talk about the problem begins a few posts down from the start.

 

 

And yep, it's a really obnoxious setting.  Interestingly, Brave doesn't seem to have picked up the same behaviour in recent updates despite being Chrome-based.