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Windows 7: How To Ignore Reports of Danger

I am running Windows 7 via VirtualBox, and I skipped Vista completely, so some of my comments might also apply to Vista and thus be outdated. Too bad.

You can probably expect a few other short pieces as I find something I like and something I don't.

So, we see Internet Explorer here trying to help you out and tell you the download seems safe. Of course, it also lets you report that the download is, in fact, unsafe! This will no doubt be fed back into their SmartScreen Filter service, and when enough users report something, future users will be warned on downloading whatever bit of malware it might be. What a great way to protect your users.

Now, the only obvious place to report the download is right here, in the download dialog box, which disappears as soon as the download completes and you can open or run it and actually discover anything threatening about it to warn others about.

My Windows 7 review will eventually be the composite of many small pieces. I'll build up a score card along the way, along with a table of links between the series.

The Good: 0
The Bad: 1
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Comments

Seo Sanghyeon said…
Now, the only obvious place to report the download is right here, in the download dialog box, which disappears as soon as the download completes.No, this happens if and only if you check "Close this dialog box when download completes" box, which can be seen on your screenshot. So don't check it.
2:54 AM
Calvin Spealman said…
Sanghyeon, this is not so. I have unchecked "Close this dialog box when download completes" on my machine, but the default is actually to close it as soon as the download completes. Perhaps I should have done a download with it checked, just for a more accurate screenshot.
9:27 AM
saluk said…
Regardless of whether the window closes before you execute the file or not, very few people are going to keep the window open long enough to actually determine whether the download is malicious or not.
11:04 AM
Anonymous said…
Can't wait till all the zombified Windows 7 machines report antiviruses as unsafe downloads!
3:43 PM
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