In many EFPS games, it is common for a game not to start. My antivirus couldn't do anything to the exe file, because it is currently turned off on my laptop. I'll try it on another machine and let you know if it starts or not.
Anyway... No other company's antivirus software is installed on my machine, Windows' built-in Defender, which says "Protection against viruses and threats" is turned off.
Anyway, my interpretation is that it is "antivirus", like Avast and Nod32 etc, they are two separate things, but they almost do the same thing.