501645 - "Scanning for Viruses" displayed despite having no anti-virus installed

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 480855

(Firefox :: Security, defect)

Description

[Lior Halphon (LIJI)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5

After downloading some files, usually happens on EXEs and archives, Firefox displays the "Scanning for Viruses" message for quite a long time (30-60 seconds usually) despite having no anti-virus installed.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Uninstall any anti-virus program, or alternatively try on another machine (Virtual?) with no anti-virus installed.
2. Download an EXE file.
Actual Results:  
After finishing the download, Firefox displays the "Scanning for Viruses" message for about 30-60 seconds.

Expected Results:  
Firefox should skip the Virus Scanning process if no anti-virus is installed and let the user open the file as soon as it finishes downloading.

Tested on Windows 7 RC. Not tested on other versions of Windows.

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan]

Fairly sure it uses Windows Defender to check for malicious files.

Comment 2

[u88484]

and you can disable windows defender or any other virus scanner from scanning downloaded files by changing a preferences in about:config. Filter for browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone and change this to false by double-clicking the entry.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

either windows defender or dupe of bug 480855