Greenlit Studio · Windows
A note on antivirus warnings
A couple of folks had their antivirus flag the Greenlit Studio installer, so I want to address it head-on rather than let it float around unanswered.
The short version: it's a false positive, and I can prove it.
I submitted the exact installer from our website to VirusTotal, an independent service that scans files with 40+ antivirus engines — Microsoft, McAfee, Sophos, CrowdStrike, and the rest of the industry. Zero engines flagged it. Check it yourself — the scan is public, and the file hash matches the installer this site serves.
The same goes for the free plugins: the Greenlit Mouth De-Click and Greenlit Spec Meter installer scans are public too — zero engines flagged either.
Beyond that scan:
- The Windows app is digitally signed. Right-click the installer → Properties → Digital Signatures and you'll see my name. A signature means the file provably came from me and hasn't been altered by anyone.
- The Mac app is developer-signed and notarized by Apple — meaning Apple's own malware scan checked it before it ever reaches your machine.
So why did an antivirus complain?
Greenlit's audio engine is built with the same toolchain used by lots of audio and scientific software, and a few antivirus products' automated guesswork (“heuristics”) are suspicious of any app they haven't seen thousands of times yet. It's a rite of passage for new software from small publishers — annoying, common, and fixable. I've applied to the affected vendors' whitelisting program (it covers AVG, Avast, Avira, and Norton), and the warning should clear over the coming days.
One thing that trips people up: a scan verdict and a desktop block are two different systems. The engines VirusTotal tests are the scanners — the part that actually inspects what's inside the file. Most antivirus products pair that with a separate reputation check, which asks how many people have installed something before rather than whether anything in it is harmful. McAfee is the clearest example: its scanning engine reports our installers as Undetectedon the public scans above, and McAfee on a desktop can still stop the download anyway, purely because the file is new. So if your antivirus blocked you even though it comes back clean on the scan, you're looking at the reputation layer — not a disagreement about the file. That one settles as more people install.
If your antivirus already quarantined it
Restore the file (or add an exclusion for the Greenlit Studio folder) and you're good to go — or message me and I'll walk you through it.
Thanks to the folks who raised it — I'd always rather explain something like this in the open. That's also why the app is built so your audio never leaves your computer in the first place.
— Chris, Greenlit Audio