Not to get all Brad Pitt in Fight Club on you, but … the first rule of DivX Software is there are no viruses in DivX Software. The second rule? THERE ARE NO VIRUSES IN DIVX SOFTWARE. Even though it’s been written here in all-caps, why do some antivirus software programs flag the DivX Software installer? The reality is some users may see a ‘false positive’ for malware from their antivirus software (e.g. McAfee, Symantec) when downloading the free version of DivX Software. Why? This is likely due to third-party offers within the DivX installer. As you’ve probably seen, when you install our software we may offer you an ad for an optional software product — which you can always decline. For what it’s worth, it usually takes a few days after a new version of our software is released to get whitelisted.
So if offering these ads causes issues, why include them? Quite simply, we include offers or ads in our software so we can make it available for free. (If you choose to purchase DivX Pro or Ad-Free, you will no longer see any outside ads in the software or installer.)
As you can imagine, there are costs associated with running DivX. There are employees (including high-priced blog post writers), technology fees and licenses, offices and more. One main way we cover these costs is to include partner offers during installation. Of course, if you aren’t interested in the product offered by our partners, just decline the offer.
One way to get past this inconvenience is to make sure you’re running the most up-to-date antivirus software, which may fix false positives. Please try updating your antivirus and/or try temporary disabling your antivirus software when running the DivX Software installer. Also, be sure you have downloaded an authentic copy of our software from DivX.com or are updating through our in-product updater. We don’t recommend downloading a copy from any other site.
We know this situation can be frustrating and we’ll keep trying to resolve it as quickly as possible. If you have any troubles installing, check out our Support article. Please keep enjoying the software and, unlike Fight Club, feel free to talk about the first and second rules of installing DivX Software.