antivirus_whitelisting - Adjusted Reinstalling and Whitelisting step 5

Adaware free

• Open the Adaware user interface
• Click Scan Computer (second icon from top)
• Go to Manage Exclusions and click View
• Click Add
• Navigate to main Firestorm application folder
• Click OK
• Repeat for Firestorm folders in User/Local

Advanced System Care

If you run the “junk files cleanup” function, then Advanced System Care is liable to trash your settings. Further to this, this program can also severely interfere with viewer connection to SL servers, as documented here.

Avast

2019-09-18 Update

it seems that in the early hours of 2019-09-18, an update was issues for Avast, and that update began “mangling” Firestorm. One user ¹⁾ provided the following:

Basic Whitelisting

Refer to this page for how to whitelist. Please ensure that you whitelist both the viewer and the viewer cache folder.

If you cannot save snapshots to your hard drive

1. Go to Settings → General tab
2. Go to 'Blocked and allowed apps'
3. Click 'Allow App' and scroll the list of programs to find Firestorm and select it (see picture below)

AVG

• Open the AVG user interface.
• Click Tools→Advance Settings.
• Resident Shield→Exceptions.
• The Add the program (or file, directory) you wish to be excluded from scans.

2019-09-18 Update

it seems that in the early hours of 2019-09-18, an update was issues for AVG, and that update began “mangling” Firestorm.

BitDefender

Please see How to add Antivirus exceptions (exclusions) in Bitdefender 2019

Bullguard

1. Open Bullguard as normal
2. Click on “Settings”
3. Click on “Advanced”
4. Go to “Antivirus” in the lefthand column
5. Open the menu (down arrow)
6. Select “Tuning”
7. In the selection of tick boxes on the righthand panel, select Skip File/Folders
8. Click on Files/Folders
9. This will bring up a probably empty set of lines, so click on the “+” sign
10. This should allow you to navigate to the particular folder, in this case the Firestorm Cache folder
11. Select that and it will appear in the first line of the box
12. To add other Firestorm folders listed at the top of this wiki page, repeat as needed
13. Here is also a check box to allow you to skip processes. The procedure is the same: Click on “process”
14. Click “+” and navigate to the .exe you wish to whitelist
15. Close Bullguard.

Credits: Thanks to user Aishagain for this information.

Comodo

Apparently Comodo adds a green border round the viewer screen. This can safely be ignored.

F-Secure

(derrived from https://community.f-secure.com/t5/Security-for-PC/How-do-I-exclude-a-file-or/ta-p/15398)

• Open Computer Security.
• On the main page of Computer Security, click Settings.
• Select Computer Security > Virus and spyware scanning.
• Select Other settings > Manual scanning.
• Click the Exclude files from the scan link. The Exclude from scanning dialog is displayed.
• Select the Objects tab.
• Select the Exclude objects (files, folders…) check box.
• Click Add.
• Navigate to and select the Firestorm install folder
• Click Add again
• Navigate to and select the Firestorm cache folder
• Click OK to close the Exclude from scanning dialog.

Gatekeeper (Mac OS X)

Gatekeeper is not an antivirus. It is Apple software that checks software the first time you run it to make sure it is from a known developer. It will flag Firestorm as unknown and will ask you if you want to let it run.

If Gatekeeper prevents you from opening Firestorm, there is a simple workaround: See “How to open an app from a unidentified developer and exempt it from Gatekeeper” on this page. Once you have allowed Firestorm to open via this method, Gatekeeper will not flag it on subsequent launches (until you reinstall Firestorm again).

For a longer-term method, please visit here for a tutorial on whitelisting using the Gatekeeper software.

Kaspersky

In order to create an exclusion rule:

• Open application settings window.
• Select Protection on the left.
• Click the Trusted Zone button in the Exclusions block.
• Go to the tab Exclusion rules and click Add.
• Select an exclusion type in the Properties field: Object and/or Threat type.
  • Object
    Click select object and choose a file, folder or a mask to exclude.
  • Select a Component in the corresponding field. The rule will apply to the selected component.
  • Threat type. Click enter threat type to select a file, folder or a mask to exclude.

Rules can apply to the following protection components:

• Virus scan,
• File Anti-Virus,
• Mail Anti-Virus (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only),
• Proactive Defense (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only),
• Web Anti-Virus (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only).

A scan if a disk or folder containing excluded objects scans the entire disk/folder except the excluded objects. Yet you can force scan excluded objects from the contextual menu (by right-clicking).

Also you can create an exclusion rule from within a report window:

• Right-click the report object you want excluded.
• Choose the option Add to Trusted Zone.

An Exclusion rule window will open. Make sure that you are satisfied with the new exclusion rule settings. Object name and threat type fields are assigned automatically on the basis of the report data. Click OK to create the rule.

Malwarebytes

For general whitelisting steps, visit Exclude detections in Malwarebytes on Windows devices

McAfee

We do not have specific details for McAfee. Check the McAfee control panel, or visit McAfee Consumer Support

Norton

Add exclusion to Auto-Protect and Risk scan

• Start Norton 360.
• Click Settings.
• Click Antivirus Protection.
• On the Scans and Risks tab, under Exclusion/Low Risks, click Configure next to Scan Exclusions.
• Under Scan Exclusions, click Add.
• Browse and select the disk drive or folder or file you would like to exclude and click OK. If you want to include subfolders within the folder, check Include Subfolders.
• Under Auto-Protect Exclusions, click Add.
• Browse and select the disk drive or folder or file you would like to exclude and click OK. If you want to include subfolders within the folder, check Include Subfolders.
• Click Apply > OK.
• Click Apply > Close

Download Intelligence

Norton Internet Security includes a feature called Download Intelligence. This works such that the user community reports downloads as good or bad. While this may be very helpful, it can also be unfairly detrimental to programs, especially when they are updated as they are then treated as totally new.

Therefore, if you use Download Intelligence, you are urged to disable it before attempting to download any of our viewers, in order to avoid them being incorrectly reported as infected with a virus. Refer to this page for instructions.

Panda Cloud Antivirus Free (version 2.1.1)

• Click on the “Antivirus” section of the UI.
• Click on “Advanced Settings” (bottom of the panel current version)
• Click on “Exclusions” tab
• Choose “Add”, then navigate to your Firestorm installation folder and put a check in the box to the left of slplugin.exe (and llceflib_host.exe for FS 4.7.7 and later), and everything else you want to exclude. Once you've checked something, the “exclude” button at the bottom of the panel is enabled. Click it when you've finished checking off everything you want to exclude.
• Click “OK” at the bottom of the “Exclusions” tab.

See this page for additional Panda tips for whitelisting files and folders: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/downloads/docs/product/help/is/2012/en/709.htm The page is out of date but the methods may still work.

PC Tools Spyware Doctor

• Right click PC Tools icon in taskbar → Open
• Go to Settings → Global action list
• Click “Add”, choose “File” & browse to your Firestorm installation folder & choose slplugin.exe - and llceflib_host.exe (for FS 4.7.9 and later).
• This will add the plugin(s) to the global whitelist.

Webroot

To date (August 2015), there is no way to whitelist the entire cache folder in WebRoot. Therefore WebRoot may continue to cause severe problems including slow rezzing and viewer freezing.

If you test with WebRoot off and find your SL experience greatly improved, the only suggestion we have is to choose another antivirus program.

Some more more info on Webroot and the problems it has been known to cause, see this page.

For additional information:

• https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-for-Business/how-to-set-file-and-folder-exclusions-in-the-webroot-console/td-p/189775
• https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere-Antivirus/How-to-exclude-a-folder-from-being-scanned-in-the-latest-WSA-AV/td-p/78063

Windows Defender/Microsoft Security Essentials

Basic Exclusions

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028485/windows-add-an-exclusion-to-windows-defender-antivirus

For Win 10 (possibly also Windows 8.x):

• Open Settings and in the search field at the top right enter defender
• In Windows Defender click Virus & Threat Protection → Virus & Threat Protection Settings → Exclusions → Add or remove exclusions
• Exclude the cache:
  • Click Add an Exclusion
  • Click Exclude a folder
  • Click in the address bar and type %LOCALAPPDATA% and press Enter
  • Click the Firestorm folder
  • Click the Exclude this folder button
  • Repeat this if you have more than one Firestorm folder (64-bit and 32-bit, for example)
• Exclude the viewer executables
  • Click the Exclude a .exe, .com or .scr process button
  • Navigate to C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Release64
  • Click Firestorm-Releasex64.exe
  • Click the Exclude This file button
  • Repeat this for SLPlugin and SLVoice - and dullahan_host.exe (for FS 5.1.7 and later).
  • Repeat this for 32-bit Firestorm ( C:\Program Files (x86) )

Can't Save Files to Hard Drive (Snapshots, Chat Files, Backups, etc.)

Additionally, if you're on Windows 10 and you can't save snapshots to your hard drive (https://jira.firestormviewer.org/browse/FIRE-23347), adding the viewer folders to the exclusion list may not be enough if you have 'Controlled Folder Access' enabled; you will need to add Firestorm to the allowed apps.

Try following these steps:

1. Right click your Windows Defender icon on your system tray > View Security Dashboard > Virus and threat Protection > Virus & Threat Protection Settings > Controlled Folder Access
   
2. Click the 'Manage Controlled Folder Access' link
   
3. Under 'Controlled Folder Access' click the 'Allow an App through Controlled Folder Access' link
   
4. Click '+ Add an allowed app'
   
5. Browse to the viewer executable in the installation folder, left click to select , click Open at the bottom of the files explorer.
   

Alternatively, you can also simply disable the Controlled Folder Access feature by clicking the on/off button after Step #2.

Can't run Firestorm installer

See this page https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_install_crash#windows.