Norton reports MultiCharts DT and QuoteManager as malware

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Capitalist

Norton reports MultiCharts DT and QuoteManager as malware

Postby Capitalist » 19 Feb 2011

I have been having problems the last few weeks with a browser redirect (hijacker) that redirects browsing sessions to the mywebface/mywebsearch web site. I did an online support session with Norton and they ran Norton Power Eraser. It flagged both Multicharts Discretionary Trader.exe and QuoteManager.exe as malware. They were the only files flagged. Regular Norton Antivirus had not flagged them. I have sent both files to Norton for further investigation, with a recommendation that they contact the developers at MultiCharts.com.

I am skeptical that these files are related to the mywebface browser redirect problem (and told Norton so), but I am uninstalling MC DT anyway. It is too buggy in its present form to use, or even run safely on a computer that is also running IB TWS live. A few of the bugs are:

1. Running MC DT or QM prevented me from cancelling or moving some orders in IB TWS (which has to be running to provide the data feed). This is a dangerous bug, to put it mildly.

2. The MC DT DOM (Matrix) display only shows one level of depth (best bid and ask). I was running this on a computer that had full depth ARCA and Nasdaq data feeds (5-10 levels) that were being correctly and simultaneously displayed in TWS. Having only one level of depth is about a decade behind virtually every other trading software package out there. I realize this is alpha software, but this is just laughably behind the competition.

I may check back in 6 months or a year and see if MC has improved substantially, but for now I am uninstalling it for the reasons listed above.

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Dave Masalov
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Re: Norton reports MultiCharts DT and QuoteManager as malwar

Postby Dave Masalov » 03 Mar 2011

Capitalist,

As for Norton Power Eraser, we are contacting Norton to find out the reason of such behavior.
1. Running MC DT or QM prevented me from cancelling or moving some orders in IB TWS (which has to be running to provide the data feed). This is a dangerous bug, to put it mildly.
We failed to reproduce the issue on our end.
Multicharts or QuoteManager launch should not affect order cancellation in TWS.

We assume that you have turned on Auto Trading ant tried to cancel or change the order sent in Auto Trading mode.

In such case the following situation is possible: you cancel the order manually and the strategy places a new one. But this is normal behavior.

Please explain what do you mean by "prevented me from cancelling or moving some orders in IB TWS" in details.

- you click on Cancel the order, but TWS does not respond
- do you see any messages
- do you see any attempts to cancel the order in TWS Audit Trail (Mainmenu -> Accounr -> Audit Trail)
- do you experience any connection losses

How do you use MC, so it affects TWS:

- Just launch it and do not plot any charts
- Launch it and plot IB chart
- Launch it, plot IB chart and start Auto Trading

What symbols are affected by the issue (all of them or any particular one)

2. The MC DT DOM (Matrix) display only shows one level of depth (best bid and ask). I was running this on a computer that had full depth ARCA and Nasdaq data feeds (5-10 levels) that were being correctly and simultaneously displayed in TWS. Having only one level of depth is about a decade behind virtually every other trading software package out there.
For stocks with SMART exchange DOM does not come through API TWS on Sim and Live accounts.
Only BestBid and BestAsk are displayed.
In all platforms that use API TWS as Multicharts (i.e. NT) you can see the same behavior.
TWS shows DOM correctly, but they do not use API.

You can get DOM only for a particular exchange (not SMART). For example, you can plot MSFT DOM on NSX exchange: you should add symbol with this exchange. Symbol mapping (symbol dictionary) of the broker profile should have the same exchange for this symbol.
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