I am a programmer and like having a good anti-virus tool on my computer. I don't want to have to exclude scans on my development folders as it leaves them vulnerable to attacks; however, Bitdefender has had the issue of any exe file being created from compiling in an IDE (I use Visual Studio) being flagged as a virus for years now (I have seen multiple threads on this over the years as well as personally experiencing it for years).
The worst issue with this is that I recently reformatted my PC and forgot about excluding scans and changing the ridiculous default option of 'Take proper actions' (which automatically deletes files) for my most recent development build - of course, this resulted in my file being deleted when I compiled it. After wasting an hour trying to find out why no exe was being created when I compile, I realised Bitdefender was responsible. I went to Bitdefender's 'Events' screen and decided to tell it to 'Delete' the file (I did this instead of recovering the file as I wanted to confirm that it was in fact Bitdefender holding it in limbo that was preventing re-creation); however, the file still wouldn't create on re-compile after doing this. I then turned off the anti-virus but it still can't be re-created (potentially a blacklist that Bitdefender acts on even with AV off?); now it appears to be completely impossible for me to create my executable with the name I want without removing Bitdefender from my system due to the ridiculous limited settings Bitdefender allows for users.
I've spent the last few hours playing around with settings to see how flexible the new 2016 version is (as settings on past versions have typically been very limited); to my disgust, I found the range of settings have grown even more limited now, to the point I almost have no control.
After testing and confirming the re-creation issue was Bitdefender by locking my ability to ever create another file, I decided to see what happens when I change the AV actions to 'Move files to quarantine' instead of 'Take proper actions'. I renamed my VS project so that it would actually create the exe on re-compile - it was flagged as a virus and deleted without asking; however, no file was quarantined so I try renaming again but still no quarantined files. I check events to find it is asking me if I want to quarantine the file so I say yes (to see if it will show up in quarantine); doing so states "The item C:\Users\PC\test.exe can't be moved to quarantine. Contact support for further assistance.", meanwhile it gives me no way to recover the file and leaves it deleted from my system (I would hate to see this happen to important files which aren't backed up; thankfully in this test case it doesn't prevent me from re-creating the file through re-compile like the 'Delete' action does).
I am disgusted that Bitdefender still has issues after years of people raising concerns with false positives on even the simplest of exes created on compilation (when I say simple, I mean one line of code which doesn't interact with other applications or system files or do any sort of unusual behaviour). On top of that, I am infuriated by the fact deletion of a file prevents any future control or creation (no matter if I turn off the AV or change actions) for that file with no way to manually override this.
I want to finally see a fix for false positives on at-time-compilation so I can actually make full use of the anti-virus I'm paying for while I do my work. I also want to see real settings so that we actually have control over what BD can and cannot do for once.
