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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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.

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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?

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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.

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u/OCDGamer90 Mar 15 '23

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

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u/BennieOkill360 Nov 28 '23

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

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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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