[Expat-discuss] Expat.dll red-flagged by Spy Sweeper.

[Erik Hermansen]

My apologies if this is old news, but I saw nothing about this in the FAQ 
or recent list archives.

I wrote some software that includes expat.dll in its Windows 
distribution.  For some reason, spyware detection software uses expat.dll 
to indicate the presence of the "Apropos" spyware which does in fact use 
this dll.  Obviously, there is nothing wrong with expat.dll, but this seems 
to be a common approach to identifying this particular spyware.  I've 
already e-mailed the makers of Ad-Aware and PestPatrol in the past and 
successfully asked them to remove the expat.dll criteria from their 
downloadable definitions.  And while I'm still awaiting a response, I 
predict Spy Sweeper will also get fixed.  That's great, but I'm tired of 
this.  I am wondering if there is some general way to prevent this unfair 
rule going into other spyware detection software.  Maybe there is some 
central place different companies are getting their rules from?

It may seem like an unimportant thing to whine about, but the end result 
for me is that users will uninstall my software and make a negative 
judgment about my company.  I find that I will need to at least add a test 
to my release cycle where I run my Windows distributables through a suite 
of spyware detectors.  I also understand that it is possible to link expat 
into my project statically, but for technical reasons that isn't 
desirable.  I guess I could also rename expat.dll to something else, but 
maybe some software is savvy to that.  Also, I guess I'm just feeling pissy 
and indignant.  :)  I shouldn't have to go to this effort, just because 
some company is being careless or over-aggressively seeking to up the 
detection count on their product to make it seem more valuable.  I would be 
interested if anybody has any ideas or insights I haven't thought of.  I 
would also like to warn anyone distributing software with expat 
(particularly on Windows) that you may be losing some users just like I am.

-Erik