On Wednesday 3rd June 2009 I noticed a page about this site, kkomp.com, on browserdefender.com. On this page it says that there’s an unsafe download on this site; a file called gpu-z.exe.

I’ve never put gpu-z.exe on the site; so I tried to download it myself, and sure enough it’s downloadable from the site’s root directory. Despite this it doesn’t appear on the ftp server, and I can find no trace of it other than the fact that it can be downloaded from this site.

I advised the hosts; fasthosts.co.uk, (I was going to change the hosting after their last act of customer-unfriendliness; but it never happened.) of the situation, and they said that they’ve never had this situation before, that they’d put an engineer straight on the case, and that they’d get back to me by email. What they actually seem to have done is absolutely nothing: Sweet F.A.

I thought I’d have a look at this file myself; and downloaded it. First things first; I scanned it.

A scan by AdAware came up negative:

A scan by Malwarebytes came up negative: -

A scan by Avast! antivirus also came up negative… So now I’m wondering – more than I’m wondering why a file that doesn’t exist according to ftp is available for download from the server, more than I’m wondering how Fasthosts have the nerve to charge more than some other hosts, yet do almost sod-all; Where is the freaking risk?

According to Malwarebytes, AdAware, and Avast! (Which is a good antivirus at coming up with false positives incidentally.) there’s no infection. – So have browserdefender.com come up with a false positive themselves? Having said that; the ftp server at fasthosts.co.uk says that the subject file doesn’t exist; yet I’m able, nevertheless, to download it. (I’m not even going to think about running the risk of actually running the file just in case.)

So WTF is going on here?

Well, in short, it seems to be something of nothing. (Literally in some ways.) The best advice I can give you on this is: -

Don’t download gpu-z.exe from this site’s root directory. If you do download it then bear the following points in mind: A) The file has nothing to do with me: I did not put it on the server. B) You download it at your own risk, and I am not responsible for any consequences of your doing so. (If you need someone to blame; fasthosts.co.uk would be a good place to start.)

I could have said nothing about this matter unless someone emailed in and made a fuss: In some ways that may have been an equally good option. – But I prefer the pre-emptive strike tactic; hence this article.

Strangely, browserdefender.com also have pcmech.com; a site that’s just gained BBB Accreditation in the USA, that has a much higher search-engine, Quantcast, etc, rating than this site, and has over 10,000 visitors a day, marked as an unsafe site too. I bet David Risley, the owner, won’t be too amused!

I get the uneasy feeling that I may be overlooking some glaring fact that’s obvious to some others. If this is indeed the case; and you know more than I do, then please comment: There’s a comment form below, so someone may as well make use of it.

Onwards and upwards: Enjoy the coming week. I’m going to spend the rest of today (Sunday June 7th 2009) mainly watching TV I think.