I have gotten Switchcars through the Coin Shop and I also got Elliot Quest from the store. However, neither of these games work. I have Norton installed and it prevents me from launching either of these files because it is protecting the WS.Reputation.1 virus. Is there any reason why my games have been protected in this way? If so, how could I fix this issue?
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Probably a false positive. Use https://www.virustotal.com and scan the files in question there using multiple engines. If that comes back clean then Norton is wrong and you can add the file to your exclusion list.
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I know Switchcars works fine without any problems, @kylehayman361 also spent a significant time playing that game, I am sure he can attest to that as well.
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If anything you should be contacting Steam or the publisher regarding this.
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Looks like Avast is having some false positive results as well.
But it seems highly unlikely to me anything would come infected from steam.
Also ws.reputation.1 is not a virus it is merely a flag for a file that could possibly be a security risk. Because symantec is employing a sort of crowd sourced reputation score and anything that gets a low score some how gets automatically flagged to make you pay attention, which you did, good on you.
Anyway, more about it here:
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indeed, I had the exact same issue, I created an exception for it with my avast yargh and it hasn’t leaked my precious files to the internet yet.
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Norton…
Does not compute…
ESET NOD32, Kaspersky Labs (for paid AVs) and Avast! (for free AVs) or bust!
Heck I’d even say Microsoft Internet Essentials does a better job than Norton ever will.
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I believe Norton is like the only AV that gives out most False Positives. I personally use Windows Defender and malwarebytes for more a in-depth scans and such like when I’m not 100% sure something is safe.
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Malwarebytes isn’t an anti-virus though, it is an anti-malware. Viruses and malware are not exactly the same thing, viruses are always harmful and mucks about in your system’s files, settings and such. Whilst malware most often just do annoying things like lag your system and maybe redirect Google searches just so you inadvertently unknowingly install more malware and or viruses.
As for Windows Defender? It helps out some, however Windows or rather Microsoft does encourage their users to install a proper Anti-virus as well for maximum protection.
I for example use Avast! as my AV on top of Windows Defender with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware as a backup utility. And when browsing the net I make sure to always keep “noscript” enabled on my web browser as well 
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Every AV will spit out false positives…it’s the nature of the beast regarding safety. It’s how quickly they’re updated and how you deal with them that matters (and whether you’re prepared to accept them as false positives). I think this is less a Steam/game file issue and more something that you’d need to contact Norton about through their false positive submission form (so that they can update their results).
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This is not a false positive though, no actual infection has been encountered. It is merely a low reputation score warning. For any standard user this sort of system is probably beneficial as they would not have a lot of new unknown executables on their systems, so telling them to be wary when such a thing shows up could be good.
So why did this game end up with a low reputation score? Well it’s a new tiny early access game, this means a relatively small number of norton users will have encountered it so they don’t have a lot of data points to work with. Since it’s also in early access and updates somewhat frequently the few norton users that have bought this game has probably done so during several different versions meaning the checksums reported on the file varies.
So norton sees a new rare file that varies in size and content a lot and that looks pretty shifty. That it originates from steam is probably not considered.
Anyway, this warning can most likely be ignored and you should just add games from steam to any exeption lists norton offers if you run into blocks like these.
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Am with you mate.
OP your problem is Norton. It is the absolutely most awful piece of popular and paid software there is.
Used to have that years ago, it spit out shit on the daily. Preventing legit software from running, (my personal favourite:) finding viruse/malware it wasn’t able to delete (rofl), eating ressources like the fat piece of software it was, requiring you to go through a sheer insane amount (relative to any other software) of cmd.exe command lines just to uninstall it…(well it is bad at removing malware as I said).
It’s a bit like paying to get a terrible sickness.
Just go get Kaspersky or Eset like others suggested, those work and those are good. I haven’t gotten a false positive wt Kaspersky in years of trying anything from AAA titles to the cheapest indie games.
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dude why do you think did we have Norton? It didn’t rank badly back then either
btw Kaspersky being Advanced+ rated
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I too use Kaspersky Total Security. I always make sure that I buy a decent AV and in the past have used Avira as well.
On topic Norton has always had a mixed reputation, but as Fraggles says this is a failure of the cloud based active component of the AV which doesn’t have enough information to build up a reliable picture of the files in question. Once the Norton Cloud encounters it enough these files won’t get flagged.
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https://virustotal.com is an incredibly useful tool. They also have a desktop app for convenient right-clicking suspect files to the cloud.
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I fixed my issue! All I had to do was tell Norton to exclude the files and I was good to go!
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