It's a miracle if anyone ever downloads my commercial software product in light of all the anti-virus/firewall software and AV browser plug-ins that outright block or discourage users from downloading EXEs from a web site. Almost every other attempt by users to download my software from my website via a direct <a href=> tag causes the download to fail/be interrupted by the browser or AV software.

Is there a better method to provide users access to my install.exe than a <a href=> link that would reduce the interference by these products?

Most recently I got a complaint stating that Norton AV cancelled out the click on the DOWNLOAD link to the point the user thought the DOWNLOAD button was dead/broken. The only way they could download the software was to right mouse click on the DOWNLOAD button (connected to a <a href=> link) and choose "Save link as..." But most users are not going to be that savvy to figure this workaround out.

I thought perhaps I should packaging my install.exe in a .zip file, hoping that that would keep some of the anti-virus products at bay.

There there is always Microsoft's Edge, which strongly discourages users from download EXEs to the point you basically have to ignore all their popup warnings before it allows the download to continue.

As I stated, it is a miracle that anyone ever gets my software installed on their PCs. No doubt sales are affected as a result.

Any tips/suggestions?