1. The installer is flagged as suspicious
Windows SmartScreen, Norton, McAfee and similar products warn about applications they haven’t seen many times before. It’s a reputation signal, not a detection — new releases of any small application trigger it. What to do: download only from openwhispr.com or our GitHub releases, then choose the option to keep or run it anyway. On Windows SmartScreen that’s More info → Run anyway. If your security software reports a specific detection name rather than a generic warning, please send it to us — we submit false positives to vendors, and your report is what lets us do it.2. Bundled components are quarantined
This is the one that produces confusing symptoms, because the app installs fine and then fails at one specific task. OpenWhispr ships helper binaries, and security software sometimes removes them silently afterwards:
What to do: add OpenWhispr to your antivirus exclusions, then reinstall so
the removed files come back. On Windows Defender that’s Windows Security →
Virus & threat protection → Manage settings → Exclusions.
Reinstalling without adding the exclusion first usually just repeats the cycle.
3. A firewall prompt for the local server
The first time local Parakeet transcription runs, Windows may ask whether to allowsherpa-onnx-ws-win32-x64 on public and private networks.
Either answer is safe. The bundled server only serves OpenWhispr itself over
127.0.0.1, and Windows never filters loopback traffic — so transcription works
even if you click Cancel. The prompt appears because the server has no
loopback-only bind option, so Windows sees it listening on all interfaces.
All-users installations register a firewall rule that blocks outside access and
suppresses the prompt entirely. Per-user and portable builds may still see it
once.
4. The firewall blocks cloud transcription
If dictation fails with connection errors rather than a security warning, the firewall is blocking outbound traffic rather than the application itself. Allow OpenWhispr through Windows Firewall, and if you’re on a managed network, give your IT team the network allowlist.FAQ
Is OpenWhispr actually safe?
Is OpenWhispr actually safe?
The desktop app is open source — you can read exactly what it does at
github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr.
Downloads come from our own site and from GitHub releases.
It worked, then stopped after a scan.
It worked, then stopped after a scan.
Classic quarantine. A scheduled scan removed a bundled binary after
installation — section 2 above.
My company won't let me add exclusions.
My company won't let me add exclusions.
Ask IT to allowlist the application rather than individual files, and send
them the network allowlist at the same time so
both are handled together.
Which detection name should I report?
Which detection name should I report?
Whatever your security software shows — the exact string. That’s what
vendors need for a false-positive submission.