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Just had another potential user that wanted to try my software get this rather silly Smartscreen error. As a user you have to click several screens away in ord

by wila 6y ago

Just had another potential user that wanted to try my software get this rather silly Smartscreen error. As a user you have to click several screens away in order to install my software. Software which is properly signed with a certificate, but well it isn't popular enough according to Microsoft to be trusted. Not sure since when "popular" equated to "trusted". You can click on some links to report this to Microsoft and they promise to look into it according to their automated report. Of course.. now several months later nothing has changed. Even if they would whitelist a single download... the next update would have the same problem again. It is easier to release the macOS version nowadays then the Windows version and that's not really an accomplishment.

lights0123 6y ago
I've seen someone (either here or Reddit, forgot which) have their build script spin up a bunch of Windows VMs in a bunch of regions and cloud providers, just to open their app and say "yes" to SmartScreen so that their binaries are trusted when they ship
- anfilt 6y ago
  Lmao, thats a pretty good idea. Also at the same time shows how useless this popularity metric is.
- wila 6y ago
  I have more than a few downloads and installs every month. Otherwise people would buy without installing... or never upgrade to the latest version (I try to release regularly) and the "not commonly downloaded" error is still there. It would probably be cheaper to try and get an EV code signing certificate (if I can even get one as an indie dev)
wtfiswiththis 6y ago
That is garbage. Bet something as stupid as pushing out your exe across a few ad networks would solve the problem. Which would highlight how dumb popular == trusted is. Also I can see how this is why some companies put out a binary that just downloads everything it needs for an up to date install, like chrome. Avoid the problem entirely after it gets whitelisted once.
rkagerer 6y ago
Just start shipping floppy disks again.
- viraptor 6y ago
  This wouldn't change the situation. What you ship would not meet the criteria either.
  - rebane2001 6y ago
    Unless you boot from them.

by wila 6y ago

lights0123 6y ago

I've seen someone (either here or Reddit, forgot which) have their build script spin up a bunch of Windows VMs in a bunch of regions and cloud providers, just to open their app and say "yes" to SmartScreen so that their binaries are trusted when they ship

anfilt 6y ago
Lmao, thats a pretty good idea. Also at the same time shows how useless this popularity metric is.
wila 6y ago
I have more than a few downloads and installs every month. Otherwise people would buy without installing... or never upgrade to the latest version (I try to release regularly) and the "not commonly downloaded" error is still there. It would probably be cheaper to try and get an EV code signing certificate (if I can even get one as an indie dev)

wtfiswiththis 6y ago

That is garbage. Bet something as stupid as pushing out your exe across a few ad networks would solve the problem. Which would highlight how dumb popular == trusted is. Also I can see how this is why some companies put out a binary that just downloads everything it needs for an up to date install, like chrome. Avoid the problem entirely after it gets whitelisted once.

rkagerer 6y ago

Just start shipping floppy disks again.

viraptor 6y ago
This wouldn't change the situation. What you ship would not meet the criteria either.
- rebane2001 6y ago
  Unless you boot from them.