I think I tried that, but the GUI was a mess and didn't have multi-core scanning.
I stick with my beloved Kaspersky, there're more good ones but I know it well. Know your enemy but also know your AV

 

It wasn't so funny until you edited it - LOL

 

Back in the days of H2O etc. releases, install packs were very lean and the 'install.exe' could be unpacked by one of the utilities which can.

Often the installs did not use registry changes so I used to unpack the install package, keeping only the *.dll, any fxp/fxb's, any user manual, then I would winrar it for safe keeping.

Sometimes if a package was downloaded vie eg. utorrent, and another same package from a host site, compare the size of both and one would sometimes be slightly larger (~10Kb~100+Kb) - giving a clue the larger one could contain something nasty.
Sure enough - when I unpacked the larger, my anti-virus would alert me of the extra nasty hidden inside.

Anyway, what was then, this is now.
Commercial install.exe's a more complex, requiring registry changes and more.

Personally - I like the independant developers, who provide their freeware product in a *.zip file, simply requiring you to move their *.dll to your VST folder.

Just my bit of history for you.

 

Yeah, I like compact, efficient and neat, too, but I have given in to larger packages, etc.
Even though I love portable programs, these days I see the whole OS drive and something "portable" in the sense that once it is imaged and archived I can restore it. Certainly it will not be compatible with different machines as a true portable, but i have had luck between similar machines using Easeus TODO backup.
Once you have a good backup habit, there is little to fear even if one does get a virus or a disk crashes.

 

I downloaded the latest Studio One for Win at AZ. I scanned the R2R keygen at totalvirus and 45 engines detected this file. Do you think those are all false positives?

 

@LWMJ Yes; false positives.
Welcome to AS!

 

Of course.
By their very nature, cracks will often be detected as viruses.

 

So it is impossible to tell if a keygen has a virus?

 

not at all, run it through virustotal if you're legitimately concerned (and look up the resulting detection names if you don't understand them)

 

After thinking about it I realize it doesn't matter what a virus scan shows. I prefer to assume that a keygen could be dangerous. I always run them in a VM. But running a crack doesn't work in a VM.

Can you run a crack in Sandboxie and open up access to the file that needs to be cracked?

 

I NEVER used Antivirus in my life, never needet it, never had Major issues

 

On Windows, its just better to use a setup. I hate any portable DLLs just lying around. And even a plain simple looking DLL can be packed by malware and its much harder to detect than by looking at setup sizes. Also if a setup is modified, you will get a yellow window when asking for admin rights instead of blue

 

R2R keygens can be unpacked by 7Zip. They have 4 files inside generally, BASSMOD.DLL for playing the music (.xm file), there will be one keygen.exe which is small (generally) and is just a launcher and has anime pics data in it. There will be another DLL which contains the logic for the keygen/patch and it will be generally the largest in size. You can get a false positive for BASSMOD.DLL if you use some shitty AV, don't fear it is harmless just packed to death. These 4 files are packed into a single .exe keygen/patcher using NSIS.
So if you are using an R2R crack, you can always unpack the keygen, if you can't its probably malware

 

or maybe a spoon for its crack.exe

 

that is the best way to keep your system clean no installer junk

 

1. get a VM for keygens
2. use virustotal on suspicious files, also let your antivir run for the first time you use & install the plugin
3. or simply get a mac like I did
I never had any problems and there were only 2 cases of malware for mac audio software in total

if the virustotal scan says "UPX.Packer" or something like that then its just an encrypted file, it doesnt neccessarily mean that they've encrypted it because it contains malware, it could also mean that they don't want other people to reverse engineer it.
(just get a VM sandbox tool and run the keygen in it)

 

I think that the best solution to deal with malware is to install antivirus, run it and clean all the viruses and other malicious files or you risk losing important data such as passwords for your bank accounts or you can lose money when you will shop online. So think about this. After reading some reviews of PCmatic review 2020 at https://antivirus-review.com/pc-matic-review I can recommend you to try this antivirus. Or you can install Malwarebytes. It is also a powerful solution against malware.

 

Delete all the temp files that are being accumulated by windows. It's this much simple or you can use a .bat file and just run it as admin once every 2 weeks or so.

 

I never had any problems, but then again, i never use cracked soft from places other than sister site.
Also, when possible, use your audio pc disconnected from wifi or lan

 

Trusted sites only, and a brain. I have never had malware and my DAW is Win10 version 1511 not updated since 2015.