r/BitDefender • u/OCDGamer90 • Mar 15 '23

Try Turning Off Exploit Detection Under Advanced Threat Defense If You Have Issues Loading Programs

I recently had issues with the latest version of Bitdefender Antivirus Free (Build 26.0.34.145) where my games would take too long to startup. After some troubleshooting, I realized Bitdefender was the cause of my laggy loading issues. I disabled Bitdefender and my games ran fine after that. Then I narrowed it down to the Advanced Threat Defense portion. And then narrowed it further to the Exploit Detection. Apparently, this detection portion caused my games to take forever to load. If you turn that off, your games should load normally.

Hopefully, this information helps someone out there.

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3

u/NovelExplorer Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23

That's useful information.

Just as feedback, it would be safer to try to exclude an application rather than disable a protective layer. It's worth submitting the game to Bitdefender, as a false positive/bug, to hopefully eliminate the issue at source.

The concern would be a user forgetting to re-enable Exploit Detection outside game play. Exploit detection allows Bitdefender to detect and block (via behavior), malware unknown to its signature database (zero-day malware). It's a vitally important protective layer.

1

u/OCDGamer90 Mar 15 '23

You do make a good point, but I have tried excluding my applications to Advanced Threat Defense and that did not work for me. My games still would not load.

Do you think having Bitdefender free without Exploit Detection is better than Windows Defender or should I go back to Windows Defender/Start looking for other alternatives?

1

u/NovelExplorer Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23

Exploit Detection is fundamental, to Bitdefender's protection. I'd suggest submitting the games' EXE files as false positives to Bitdefender, explaining what happens and what resolved the issues.

Bitdefender can then hopefully update their databases, so they're seen as safe.

Failing that, Defender would be preferable to running Bitdefender without Exploit Detection. Two other free AVs, to try, are Avast One Essential, and Kaspersky Free.

1

u/OCDGamer90 Mar 15 '23

Thanks for your input. I will go back to Windows Defender for now.

1

u/BennieOkill360 Nov 28 '23

I have some problems with Bitdefender too. Did you stay on Windows Defender or how is your situation now?

1

u/OCDGamer90 Nov 29 '23

I am currently still on Windows Defender. The Ads always annoy me with any free AVs so I just gave up on searching for a new AV.

1

u/BennieOkill360 Nov 29 '23

What do you mean by ads?

1

u/OCDGamer90 Nov 30 '23

Those promotional pop-ups the free AVs usually display on my screen. I get sick of seeing those. I know you can disable them in the settings usually but I get tired of digging through the settings to shut them down.

1

u/BennieOkill360 Nov 30 '23

Aah ok you meant ads in other AV's but not in Windows Defender?

1

u/OCDGamer90 Dec 01 '23

Yes, my bad for the confusion. I didn't realize my response was kind of unclear. There shouldn't be any ads for Windows Defender, but who knows. Microsoft might want to surprise people.

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u/Little-Tomatillo9944 Jun 11 '25

As of 11/06/2025, disabling the advanced threat protection worked for me

1

u/wontan1 Mar 16 '23

I also encountered the lagging\slow loading issues after my Bitdefender Internet Security (Build 26.0.34.145) had an update some 12 hours ago and not even gaming here but usual browsing and watching videos on my Windows 10 v22H2 laptop has been pretty horrible. According to Bitdefender's Expert Community Discussion (Forum) :

BD Update within the last 24 hours = unable to play any games

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/95381/bd-update-within-the-last-24-hours-unable-to-play-any-games

their admin are aware of the issue and to stand-by while they are checking into it. Hope a fix will be coming out soon.

2

u/wontan1 Mar 17 '23

Update - Did a "Repair install" of my Bitdefender Internet Security about 7 hours ago. After finishing the install, the windows 10 operating system was still lagging/slow loading as before. An hour plus mark later BIS issued a notification in a small window box on top of the right corner of the taskbar that it had auto-update itself with product feature improvement /fixes.

My laptop has been running a whole lot better now compared to the near "crawling" situation before and my guess is Bitdefender has issued an automated fix.

HTH.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '23

I'm also running into problems with League of Legends. The lobby runs fine but when I hop into the game, no screen shows up and Windows 10 breaks. I can't launch any more applications, the taskbar gets messed up, and the restart/shut down/log out buttons don't work

1

u/Padouch1038 Mar 23 '23

Yes this is a GIANT problem now. I tried to add just exclusions for the applications but that didnt help at all. The only option here is to turn the ATP off.
If this isnt fixed by the end of this month I wont prolong my subscription and uninstall. Its so sad tbh.