KeyPress OSD

Do you get a virus warning?

The answer is YES, most likely. The warning is a false-positive alert. This page is meant to provide arguments to people rightfully concerned about the  application. KeyPress OSD does not contain viruses and it is not malware. The application is portable, it has no installer.

1. The purpose of the application is to listen to all the keys and display them on screen.

Given this application is listening to every keyboard and mouse action, to display them on-screen for its users, it is understandable and reasonable for some anti-virus software to falsely label KeyPress OSD as malware, or that it contains a virus.

You can try the alternate download package. The application is packaged in a different way and might not trigger virus alerts.

2. KeyPress OSD is listed on the official Microsoft Windows Store.
This should represent an additional reassurance of KeyPress OSD being virus free. I suppose Microsoft does thorough security checks on the submitted applications.

Product page: microsoft.com/store/apps/9PB983LBK72N

To avoid any kind of warnings, download KeyPress OSD from Microsoft Windows Store. Please keep in mind, you are going to download an older version and poorly maintained.

3. KeyPress OSD relies at its core on a module that is frequently flagged as malware.

The core of KeyPress OSD is called Autohotkey. You can check their web site: autohotkey.com.

On the official AHK forums, please check this post as well:

autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=62266

It speaks of the false-virus warnings people deal with when developing applications relying on AHK or other similar languages.

4. The code of KeyPress OSD is also partially open source on Github.

github.com/marius-sucan/KeyPress-OSD

5. The product is in development since September 2017.

Here is the development blog: autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=225

6. I use my real name everywhere.

I have no intent to sell malware, if I would have this intent, I would not put my real name visible everywhere.

I am not hiding who I am or my background. This is my personal site: marius.sucan.ro.

To conclude, there is the option to certify the binary files, by obtaining a code signing certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority, e.g., DigiCert. However, this is very expensive and I am not yet ready to invest into it.

I hope the provided arguments are convincing enough to make you trust to at least give KeyPress OSD a try. If you still have some questions,do not hesitate to contact me on the KeyPress OSD discord server or through my aforementioned personal web site.

X. What to expect if you download the trial or buy KeyPress OSD.

In most of the web browsers, the very attempt to download KeyPress OSD might be problematic. Some anti-virus applications and browsers prevent users from downloading supposed malware and even make it difficult for the user to apply an exception.

If you do manage to download it and use it. After some time, you might also suddenly be informed the KeyPress OSD binary file, the EXE, is malware. As a consequence, the file will probably get deleted. What you can do? In most anti-virus applications, you can white-list the EXE file and/or the containing folder of KeyPress OSD.

Thank you.