[Tyrian]

I was just running a boot time scan with Avast! when I got a hit in a really unexpected place, my FS2 Open directory.  Avast! flagged it as Win32:Spyware-Gen[SPY].  It said it was located in FS2NetGV.exe.  I quarantined the file as a precaution.  I'm almost certain that this is a false positive, as it's a generic hit, but could someone with some more familiarity with the FS2 source check this out?  Thanks!

[The E]

....and noone cares, because that utility has been useless for quite some time now.

Multiplayer games can be arranged more comfortably in the #hard-light IRC channel.

Also, the original fs2netgv was not written by a member of the SCP, as far as I am aware.

[Aardwolf]

I was just running a boot time scan with Avast! when I got a hit in a really unexpected place, my FS2 Open directory.  Avast! flagged it as Win32:Spyware-Gen[SPY].  It said it was located in FS2NetGV.exe.  I quarantined the file as a precaution.  I'm almost certain that this is a false positive, as it's a generic hit, but could someone with some more familiarity with the FS2 source check this out?  Thanks!

I heard Avast! marks anything built with MSVC2010 as malware. So yeah, get a less retarded antivirus program.

Not saying FS2NetGV was made with MSVC2010 of course... just pointing out that it sucks.

[Fury]

FS2NetGV.exe gets false positive because it is custom chat client for old multiplayer PXO lobby. The code used in the 90's triggers false positives and Avast is not only one which does this. Whatever you do with exe is up to you, it's useless.

[sigtau]

I was just running a boot time scan with Avast! when I got a hit in a really unexpected place, my FS2 Open directory.  Avast! flagged it as Win32:Spyware-Gen[SPY].  It said it was located in FS2NetGV.exe.  I quarantined the file as a precaution.  I'm almost certain that this is a false positive, as it's a generic hit, but could someone with some more familiarity with the FS2 source check this out?  Thanks!

I heard Avast! marks anything built with MSVC2010 as malware. So yeah, get a less retarded antivirus program.

Not saying FS2NetGV was made with MSVC2010 of course... just pointing out that it sucks.

You heard incorrectly.  If that were the case, Avast would flag FSO as such, and I have never had that problem myself.

[Aardwolf]

You heard incorrectly.  If that were the case, Avast would flag FSO as such, and I have never had that problem myself.

I seem to have misrepresented my sources; I heard from a single person (a "primary source") who was having trouble with Avast! flagging VS2010-built executables, even when they were directly-ported versions of working and not-being-flagged VS2008 executables. I did not mean to say that it happened in all cases.

Sure, it's only anecdotal evidence, but it's funneh.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Heck NAV2008 reports FS2 and FS2_Open as a worm.  One of the reasons I dumped that.  

[chief1983]

MSE has been working nicely for me.

[Nuke]

you think virus programmers write 100% original code. they are always dipping their fingers into open source, grabbing useful bits and putting it to evil use. that has always been my theory about false positives on the virus scanner.

[T-Man]

I run Norton and it flagged up the same thing; did an auto-delete too. I've imagined it to be due to it heusterically scanning (i think i spelt that right, means it looks for virus code within files instead of virus files). Up side, it can catch a lot of viruses (even ones it doesen't fully know). Downside, you easily get false positives some of the time (i suspect mine was, as the PC it came up on practically never goes on the net and i search any USBs that go onto it using my laptop). I bet it was a false positive on yours too Tyrian, but might be best to leave it quarantined until you can confirm that as i'm not an expert.

So for the record, is FS2NetGV is not vital for FSO, judging by The E's response?

[The E]

FS2NetGV is entirely useless.

[Shade]

FS2NetGV is not a part of FSO. It is a third-party utility to help people find games online. It hasn't worked for a long time now since it wasn't updated to match the improvements made to FS2NetD.

In short, forget about FS2NetGV, and if you want to play multi then either fire up FSO and log into FS2NetD (which does have a chat lobby now), or drop into the #hard-light irc channel and ask there if anyone is up for a game (better option).

[captain-custard]

yep it has been useless for ages ( after the 3.6.9/3.6.10 change) but for all those ppl that never used it it was a very useful tool , ie you could see what servers were up and who was online and had a small chat utility all in a verysmall package , now i need a browser open , an irc client and i still cant chat with ppl in the lobby . so come on you clever ppl any chance of a new one of these ?

[Angelus]

yep it has been useless for ages ( after the 3.6.9/3.6.10 change) but for all those ppl that never used it it was a very useful tool , ie you could see what servers were up and who was online and had a small chat utility all in a verysmall package , now i need a browser open , an irc client and i still cant chat with ppl in the lobby . so come on you clever ppl any chance of a new one of these ?

Something like a chatclient that allows to talk to people in the lobby and in the IRC channel?
Hmmm, i see a lot of potential.
I also see a lot of problems.

[chief1983]

Actually, for a while you could talk to people in the lobby from your IRC client.  But I don't think that works now.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

That was locked out for security concerns.  The IRC channels used in game block all outside connect attempts. 

[taylor]

It doesn't really block all outside access, it just requires an authenticated FS2NetD session to connect.  It's not terribly difficult to spoof (at the moment at least) and allow a standard IRC to get in, but it would take a lot of connection attempts to work out the right the user/ID combination.  And it is also possible to log in to the game and then with info you get in the logs you could get into the lobby server with a standard chat client.  I'm not totally sure why you would want to do so, but it's possible.

If a chat client were made that could log in to FS2NetD then it could also use the lobby quite easily.  I had thought about making something like that myself but I never really had the time.  If the source code for FS2NetGV were available then it should be possible to modify it to work with the newer FS2NetD without much trouble and even use the lobby server for chat instead of IRC.