Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP files - corrupted by generic virus?

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 07/06/2016 06:55 PM, Simon Budig wrote:
> Hi Sally.
>
> Sally Davies (sa davies talktalk net) wrote:
> > I've recently installed GIMP - in June 2016. My antivirus software is AVG.
> > It has picked up corrupted GIMP files, saying that there is a generic virus
> > involved:
>
> Where exactly did you download Gimp?
>
> Please note that there are tons of download sites, that might very well
> host a malware-injected package of gimp. We strongly encourage
> downloading from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ for that very reason.

I might add that "generic virus" appears to indicate that heuristics
detected something that looks like a virus (or worm or exploit or...) to
AVG but is not in its virus signature database.  AVG itself has a
history of "downhill progress" over the last several years and I have
recently seen indications that it tends to throw false positive virus
warnings.

I would recommend uninstalling AVG and replacing it with Avast, as a
first step in troubleshooting "generic" virus reports from AVG.
Needless to say, download programs only from the websites of their
original makers, etc. etc.

:o)