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AppGameKit Classic Chat / PSA - modifying the AGK player ICON can cause some Antivirus to flag a false positive.

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Supertino
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Posted: 3rd Oct 2017 20:11
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So I submitted my game to steam who reported 2 out of 65 antivirus programs was flagging the AppGameKit player as malware-gen ( https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/333d1c739ecca166bc97903bb30b37f4cc2116ba5fc4e0ae3fcee82f801b49ef/detection ) , suspecting a false positive I installed malware bytes and did a full scan, nothing found. I then did some tests;

1. Copied the windows 64bit AppGameKit player to my desktop (C:\Program Files (x86)\The Game Creators\AGK2\Players\Windows) then uploaded it to totalvirus.com = no virus found
2. Used resource hacker on the AppGameKit player I just copied to my desktop and replaced the icon, uploaded it to totalvirus.com = 2/65 found the malware-gen
3. As a sanity check I deleted the player I copied to my desktop and copied a new one from the location in (1)
4. Used icofx3 (icon editor) to modify the AppGameKit player icon. Uploaded it to totalvirus.com = 2/65 found the malware-gen

So it seems if you modify the ICON of the player AVG and Avast flag it, for what it's worth I reported my .exe with the modified icon as false positive, I'll let you know if they do anything.
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nz0
AGK Developer
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Posted: 4th Oct 2017 00:58
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Seems it would be better if we got the option to set icons.

I thought some more ideas on this:

We should be able to have some control at t1 for the bytecode file. Such as pass the byc filename as a param to the player.
This way, you wouldn't need to make separate programs (and players) for separate blocks of code.

As a work we could use a separate program to call the player?
I could make you a quick program or something for this, where you can set your own icon.

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Supertino
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Posted: 6th Oct 2017 15:50
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Update: AVG have white listed my file (AGK player + my icon)

@ nz0 - I am not sure how you mean?
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xCept
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Posted: 8th Oct 2017 02:46
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Being able to change the icon in AppGameKit IDE should really be implemented, especially when it was considered an issue and request way back in 2011 already (and I believe at one point was listed as coming soon to the IDE for Tier 1 developers). We shouldn't have to use resource editors to alter it.
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Ian Rees
AGK Developer
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Posted: 9th Oct 2017 08:06
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I agree. Hopefully it will be added.
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Supertino
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Posted: 9th Oct 2017 09:19
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A nice no fuss way would be to add a .ico or .icon file to your media folder and when you compile you get a custom player.exe that uses that icon.

I also notice on MAC in full screen if I move the mouse to the top of the screen I see "App Game Kit Player" menu bar with AppGameKit player about links etc. not very professional but that's another issue.
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MadBit
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Posted: 9th Oct 2017 11:34
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I am sure. This is not what you want. But you can make a link by right-clicking and then you can change the icon of the generated link file.
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ShaunRW
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Posted: 10th Oct 2017 02:31 Edited at: 10th Oct 2017 02:32
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Quote: "I also notice on MAC in full screen if I move the mouse to the top of the screen I see "App Game Kit Player" menu bar with AppGameKit player about links etc. not very professional but that's another issue."

Yeah, I don't like this either. It would be good if SetWindowTitle changed it, or even a pre-compiler directive.

Quote: "But you can make a link by right-clicking and then you can change the icon of the generated link file."

This wouldn't change the icon on the window/taskbar/launchbar.
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Supertino
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Posted: 10th Oct 2017 09:56
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Maybe you could use a hex editor to make a few string changes regarding the "App Game Kit" title bar on MAC, though I am sure this is against the License\TOS, then again changing the player Icon is probably against the TOS. But yes some robust options such as Icon etc built into the IDE or triggered via a file(s) you put into the media folder would be great. Or better yet an official wrapper that wraps all the content into a single sandboxed .exe.
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Conjured Entertainment
AGK Developer
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Posted: 10th Oct 2017 13:42
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Quote: "A nice no fuss way would be to add a .ico or .icon file to your media folder and when you compile you get a custom player.exe that uses that icon."

I agree, and I think that would be the best way to do it to make it easy for users.

Just use a "logo.ico" to replace the default, so if it finds your "logo.ico" in the media folder then it would replace the default icon, and if it didn't find one then it would use the default.

Then all users would need to do is drop a valid icon file in there.

The only problem I could see is if the icon file is not valid or missing some of the necessary sizes of images.

So, a quick internal test would need to be performed, and any missing sizes replaced with the defaults, or just use the default if the user's "logo.ico" fails the test giving an error message to inform.

Should be doable, but a bit of work for Paul in order to 'unadvertise' the product, so not really a motivator for him.

Maybe a trade off could be done, so that if the user icon is used, then an AppGameKit splash screen would be required.

That way AppGameKit still gets advertised and the user still gets a professional looking product with their custom icon.

In my opinion, a 2 second splash screen at the beginning of the program would be better advertising for AppGameKit than a tiny icon anyway.

Right now, the splash is optional but the icon is not, and a trade off would give the user the option of which way they would like to help promote AGK.

Surely we do want to help TGC and Paul promote AppGameKit, even though it causes us competition.

Lets face it, this is a very competitive market anyway, and converting our competition from other game development tools to AppGameKit is not really adding to the competition as much as it is bringing them over to our community for additional support and friendship.

Its all good, except for those 3rd party icon programs flagging as viruses, and being the only option right now to thoroughly change the icon.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 10th Oct 2017 16:25
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The problem is the exe file is not recreated on compile. It's a pre-existing file which is copied from the AppGameKit install folder.
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Supertino
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Posted: 10th Oct 2017 19:59
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Good news and bad news, the warnings on AVG and Avast has gone since I submitted the file to them to be white-list but now 11 other tools are flagging it. All appear to be heuristic detection's.

I decided to install some of these programs and scan the file directly because when you hover over any of the listings in virustotal it says "My differ from off the shelf product, the [company] decides what settings the engine should use on Virustotal", so the settings on VirusTotal might be higher than the regular consumer versions. I tried Adware, Emsisoft and F-secure - all three showed the same detection so that's a theory out of the window.

To be thorough I'll submit my file to these tools to be white-listed and check it again next Monday but I might just go back to the standard player and hope no one notices the icon.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 11th Oct 2017 08:59 Edited at: 11th Oct 2017 09:00
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Since the exe file directly access and processes another file, that's probably what the AV software is picking up and flagging, since viruses want to infect existing files.
When you add an icon to the standard player exe file, you change its signature so it will be detected by AV software again.
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Conjured Entertainment
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Posted: 11th Oct 2017 14:09
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Quote: "The problem is the exe file is not recreated on compile. It's a pre-existing file which is copied from the AppGameKit install folder."


Well, if the existing EXE can call the MAIN.AGC for the code, which can be changed, then couldn't it call the icon externally as well?

You guys know more about the internals than I do, but there must be some kind of work around, maybe like the one NZ0 suggested.

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Supertino
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Posted: 12th Oct 2017 08:44
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I think ultimately the issue is the AppGameKit player is considered safe so when tools encounter a modified version it's right to flag it, probably the only option is to some how have the ability to compile our own player executable's which will probably never happen.

As an update only 2 tools (which I have never heard of) are now flagging, I think some of these tools share databases as I could only submit the file for white listing to 4 of the 11. none of the big players are now flagging so I am happy with that.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 12th Oct 2017 12:44
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Quote: "Well, if the existing EXE can call the MAIN.AGC for the code"

It doesn't. It simply opens bytecode.byc. It doesn't care about the sourcecode at all.
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Conjured Entertainment
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Posted: 12th Oct 2017 13:00 Edited at: 12th Oct 2017 13:09
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Like I said before, you guys know more about the internals than I do, but I am learning a lot from Mobiius in this thread.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 13th Oct 2017 12:49
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Glad I can help.
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