Anyone having problems with Delphi-2010 and Norton Internet Security 2010?

Question

I just spend the good part of the afternoon trying to find out why some projects, when compiled and run from within the Delphi-2010 IDE produced a 'Security Risk - A program is behaving suspiciously on your computer' warning every time I compiled it.

In the end it turned out to be the following: - if version information is turned on 'Include version info in your project' - and you are including one of the Developer Express units (f.i. cxControls) than Norton Internet Security's sonor technology is flagging the program as suspicious (which, on my pc, results in a 45 seconds wait and prompt). Running the program from outside the IDE, works fine.

I will flag this to support of Developer Express too, of course, but I thought about explaining this problem on this community site also.

I would obliged if anyone, having the same configuration, could verify this to be true of course, since I have only my own pc to test this on (my laptop still runs Norton Internet Security 2009).

Delphi 7 does not have the same problem (or I would have found this out much, much sooner).

I used the following code of the main form as test:

  unit frm;

  interface

  uses
    Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
    Dialogs,
    ActnList, cxControls ;

  type
    TForm1 = class(TForm)
    private
      { Private declarations }
    public
      { Public declarations }
    end;

  var
    Form1: TForm1;

  implementation

  {$R *.dfm}
  end.

As far as I know, I did not change any settings of Norton Internet Security 2010 after installation.

I installed the latest updates of Delphi-2010.

Dev.Express suite v 47 is installed.

UPDATE: The problem is not restricted to the use of the DevExpress units. I have the same problem when compiling the EC_Edit project in the Main folder of the demos of the SyntEdit component. As far as I can determine (after trying and pinpointing for 4 days!) is that it has something to do with the classes unit (or one of the units used by classes) of the Delphi 2010 version.

Emeryemesis

Update: it has nothing to do if the project is started from the IDE. It's just the first time the exe is started that the SONAR produces the error. Running the project from the IDE produces the SONAR error. If I than run the program from Windows, I already have told Norton that the exe can be trusted, and of course it runs without problems. – Emeryemesis

Dev.Express suite v 46 produces the same error. The support of Developer Express have not heared from this problem. Can anyone with a simular configuration (Delphi 2010 and Norton Internet Security 2010) test this ? – Emeryemesis

I still cannot believe I am the only one with this configuration. Doesn't anyone have the same problem ? I have now installed NIS 2010 on my laptop too (it was running NIS 2009), and have the same problem now on two different computers (although they are connected via an home network). – Emeryemesis

Answer 1

Look at the following page I found at the Norton community page:

http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=Announcements&thread.id=18

It seems (I hope) that Norton is doing it more than once. I have found the above link where I find the following:

• Programs compiled with certain compilers may be falsely detected by SONAR: http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=80654)

I don't know how long this info will remain there, but I'd thought I'd answer my own question in the mean time. I'm just hoping that Symantec can fix this, because at the moment I can't use Delhpi 2010 safely to create programs because I will never know if that executable will run safely on my users computers.

Emeryemesis

Answer 2

Doesn't Norton have a history of conflicts with other software? It may be just rumours, but that's what I've heard. I would sooner trust D2010 and uninstall Norton. In fact, when I got my new laptop a few months ago, the first thing I did was uninstall Norton.

Cantlon

I seem to recall ten years or so ago Norton decided every Delphi program was a security risk because someone had created a virus with Delphi so suddenly everything made with Delphi was flagged as suspicious. – Teressaterete

I have been using Norton software on my development pc's as long as I can remember, and have never ever had a serious issue with it. It is only just now that the problems started, and only on XP, some Delphi programs and the so called SONAR technology. But appearantly other compilers should produce executables too which are flagged as suspicious. AFAIK Norton is now aware of the problem and is changing it's SONAR technology (that's what a Symantec employee answered on their site). Let's wait and see. – Emeryemesis

Yes. Many moons ago Norton declared everything I wrote a virus. I wasn't running it myself but I was trying to email an .EXE to a guy who was--and it was being auto-deleted. Much confusion! – Nissen