Virus checkers, valid software blocked and hangs...

We have been hearing from our customers that Norton and Symantec our quarantining parts of our version 8 applications. Why would anti-virus software block applications that do not contain malware or viruses?

Symantec and other anti-virus software companies use detection techniques to try and determine if something might harm your computer. Based on certain attributes that they decide, they quarantine or block applications from running if their tools believe your software may cause harm. These detection techniques also make mistakes and can block clean software applications from running.

What does this look like for Solid Documents software?

Software Hangs at Start

Run Solid Converter v8 or Solid PDF Tools v8 and you see the splash screen and then the cursor just spins and spins and spins. Hopefully you see your anti-virus software pop up a notice that it has blocked one of our services. The potential services that could get blocked:

SolidFramework.JobHandler.exe
SolidScanServiceX86.exe
SolidScanServiceX64.exe

Microsoft Word Addin Gets Quarantined

We add a toolbar ribbon to Microsoft Word with version 8. This can also get blocked and quarantined by Symantec or other anti-virus checkers. You will see a message that SolidWordAddin.dll has been quarantined.

Our software is safe and free of any malware or adware. We use code signing certificates to mark our software from Solid Documents. You can trust the software you download from our website. When you install you will always see our company name when Windows verifies that you trust the provider of the software you are trying to install.

Fortunately Symantec has a way to report these false-positive quarantines to get us off their list. We have submitted our software for review to them and they have white-listed our software. Now they have to push out the definitions that include our software to all their users. We will pro-actively continue to ask for Symantec (and Norton) to white-list our releases to try and eliminate these false-positive reports from happening and hindering your use of our software.

If you ever have questions regarding our software, please email us at support@soliddocuments.com. If other anti-virus checkers are blocking our software please let us know.