FreePascal 3.2.2 released!

[PascalDragon]

Is there actual malware in fpc-3.2.2.i386-win32.exe installer or my antivirus detected a false positive? If the former is true, how did the fpc-3.2.2.i386-win32.exe installer get infected?

AntiVirus systems really like to detect FPC binaries. The binary on SourceForge has the same checksum as the one on our FTP servers and VirusTotal reports that only Avast and AVG detect something. So yes, it's a false positive and you should report it to your AntiVirus vendor.

[af0815]

In the past i have always/often to report selfcompiled fpc and it tools to Avira, because the software detects and blocks it. After the reporting in 1 or 2 days it was no problem to compile. I think if the issue is reported, the AV-Provider will update their reporting.

Report, report and report, so the AV-Providers will have a look to get their product less producing positive false.

Now Avira is not useable for me, becaus with the last changes it installs a lot of unwanted software and i can not inhibit this. The Support have checked tis and the official answer was 'It by design'. Ok, with this design i have closed my paid subscription (it too - by design).

[StandardPascalAdvocate]

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

Curiously enough, after scanning the Win32 installers for fpc versions 3.0.4 and 3.2.0, which I still keep, Avast Antivirus didn't detect any malware threats. How come this antivirus only detected malware in the Win32 installer for fpc 3.2.2.?

Anyway, I've tried Kaspersky antivirus and it didn't detect any threat in fpc-3.2.2.i386-win32.exe installer, and given Kaspersky antivirus' very good reputation, I suspect the malware detected by Avast Antivirus is a false positive.

[PascalDragon]

Curiously enough, after scanning the Win32 installers for fpc versions 3.0.4 and 3.2.0, which I still keep, Avast Antivirus didn't detect any malware threats. How come this antivirus only detected malware in the Win32 installer for fpc 3.2.2.?

Because AntiVirus software uses heuristics. The code from 3.2.0 to 3.2.2 changed enough that their heuristics triggered and they don't have the new binaries in their exclusion list, yet.

[Blade]

AntiVirus systems really like to detect FPC binaries. The binary on SourceForge has the same checksum as the one on our FTP servers and VirusTotal reports that only Avast and AVG detect something. So yes, it's a false positive and you should report it to your AntiVirus vendor.

I don't think the misidentification and false positives are always just by accident, by these antivirus companies.  Definitely users should report and make it clear that they expect their antivirus product to be accurate and not spewing BS alerts to appear more useful than it actually is.

[Igor Kokarev]

I don't recommend to use Avast. Read "Antivirus firm Avast is reportedly selling users' web browsing data" from Cnet and other sources. The best antivirus is Windows Defender form Microsoft. We never had any issues with it.

We compiled our products with Delphi many years and now with FPC, earlier with Delphi we had false positives with Avast and some other antiviruses 1-2 times annually. Now with FPC compiled code no problem since 2019.

[Okoba]

Thanks to the FPC team 

[tcab]

The Mac fpc source installer

Code: [Select]

fpc-src-3.2.2-1-laz.pkginstalls 3.2.0 not 3.2.2.

I am unable to get Lazarus configured due to this problem.
Download was from https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/Lazarus%20macOS%20x86-64/Lazarus%202.2RC1/

[PascalDragon]

The Mac fpc source installer

Code: [Select]

fpc-src-3.2.2-1-laz.pkginstalls 3.2.0 not 3.2.2.

I am unable to get Lazarus configured due to this problem.
Download was from https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/Lazarus%20macOS%20x86-64/Lazarus%202.2RC1/

Please report this in the Lazarus 2.2 RC1 thread. This is about the 3.2.2 release of FPC which does not provide such a download.

[Igor Kokarev]

I recently installed FPC 3.2.2 on M1 Mac (fpc-3.2.2.intelarm64-macosx.dmg).

Thanks to FPC team for their great work!

I noticed that during installation I was informed about installation of Rosetta 2 emulator first time (I didn't use it earlier).

May I suggest that FPC binaries (or installer agents) should be Universal Binaries to work without Rosetta emulator.

Cross-compilation for x86-64 or aarch64 is very easy on any Mac with Big Sur. Universal Binary also can be created with one call of lipo command.

I'm sure that Apple will drop Rosetta 2 emulator in several years and we should be ready.

[PascalDragon]

The FPC binaries themselves are Universal Binaries. They have been from the migration of PowerPC to Intel on.

I don't know about the installer however.