On 04Jul2016 2241, Steve Holden wrote:

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Hi Peter,

While the humble webmasters can do little about this it's possible the developers can, so I am forwarding your email to their mailing list.

regards Steve

Steve Holden

On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 3:30 AM, Peter via Webmaster mailto:webmaster@python.org> wrote:

Hi I'm a heavy user of Python on Windows, am a Basic PSF member and have contributed to core Python. The Python 2.7.12 Windows installer download is being marked as untrusted by Norton Internet Security. I've been on chat with Symantec, and they've said that I can't do anything about that rating, but that the site owner can. I've been pointed to: https://safeweb.norton.com/help/site_owners Interestingly, the 3.5.2 download is flagged as safe. Hoping to get more Python out to users! Thanks Peter

Peter, can you provide the exact URL that safeweb is complaining about? I tried a few at https://safeweb.norton.com/ and they all showed up as clean.

Also please clarify whether this is what you mean. It's not entirely clear whether the download is being scanned or the reputation of the URL is in question.

Cheers, Steve Hi Steve It's not the URL it is complaining of, rather On Windows, Norton Internet Security virus checks all downloads. One of

(Response at bottom) On 6/07/2016 2:39 AM, Steve Dower wrote: the names they give to the result of their scanning is 'File Insight'. From what I can tell, it uses a few checks: - virus scanning using known signatures - observable malicious behaviour - how well known or used it is across other users of Nortons. It seems that the last of these is a causing the warning. Obviously this is not a problem for me, but may be concerning for less tech savvy Windows users that get the warning. There isn't a way within Nortons to 'report for clearance' of the file. And my chat with a (entry level) Norton representative got nowhere. I'll email screen captures in the next email. Let me know if they don't come through and I'll paste them somewhere. Let me know if I can give any more information. Peter

On 6/07/2016 9:51 AM, Steve Dower wrote:

On 05Jul2016 1615, Peter wrote:

...

It's not the URL it is complaining of, rather On Windows, Norton Internet Security virus checks all downloads. One of the names they give to the result of their scanning is 'File Insight'. From what I can tell, it uses a few checks: - virus scanning using known signatures - observable malicious behaviour - how well known or used it is across other users of Nortons. It seems that the last of these is a causing the warning. Obviously this is not a problem for me, but may be concerning for less tech savvy Windows users that get the warning. There isn't a way within Nortons to 'report for clearance' of the file. And my chat with a (entry level) Norton representative got nowhere. I'll email screen captures in the next email. Let me know if they don't come through and I'll paste them somewhere. Let me know if I can give any more information.

I don't think there's anything we can do about this, other than convince more users of Norton Internet Security to use Python 2.7 (apparently Python 3.5 is more popular with that demographic :) )

The installer is signed with the PSF's certificate, which keeps Windows Smartscreen happy and is the only way we can indicate that it's trustworthy. If Norton requires different criteria then that is on them and not something we can fix.

Cheers, Steve

I suspect you're right. It's a flawed model that they're using, and they are quite impervious to suggestions. Glad 3.5 is winning :-) Keep up the good work. Peter