Too Many False Positives

I hate Bitdefender. I really am at that point where this piece of... software is just not worth it because of the amount of false positives (ATC4) that I'm getting and have gotten in the past. Hate is a very strong word, but with my level of frustration with Bitdefender right now and the amount of HOURS and at times multiple days I have spent troubleshooting this bloody program I am not sure hate is a strong enough word for what I think of Bitdefender. I have Bitdefender Total Security 2018, and it's been the most frustrating anti-virus/security suite I have ever used in my 30 years of computer experience (and I thought the bloatware of McAfee and Norton were bad. Nope Bitdefender is WORSE).

Today, Bitdefender decided to flag Firefox as an ATC4 virus. Seriously. Then, Bitdefender borked all of my extensions for Firefox. Not new ones. Existing ones. Why? Bitdefender also decided Rainmeter, a program I have been using for the past year (since prior to installing Bitdefender and after having done bi-monthly full scans for the past 6 or more months since I first bought and installed Bitdefender) is now infected with ATC4 virus. No changes have been made.

I have gone and fought with Bitdefender in trying to exclude the folders and program files of both Firefox and Rainmeter in the Anti-Virus and Application Access sections of this piece of... software. I think I was able to get back my settings for my Firefox extensions, but Rainmeter is still borked. So far, I've gotten one section of Rainmeter working but the other parts still have some sort of access restriction that I cannot figure out.

I'm at the point where uninstalling this piece of... software called Bitdefender might be my only option. What else can I do to exclude a program as being flagged as a false positive?

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Comments

jnebbe

If it is the code of the software itself that is causing the block, the only solution is to disable the real time protection, report the false positive https://www.bitdefender.com/submit/, and wait for the update that fixes the definitions.

Although check what is causing the block in the details behind the list, because these could be blocked because they are accessing a particular URL and that can be added to exceptions. Or they are sending credentials over unencrypted connections (I have one of these). These can be added to exceptions.

Systematic false positives can happen, and I know it is extremely frustrating when it happens (it prevented me from logging into an online game for 2 days until I figured out what happened) but it usually disappears quite quickly in signature updates. It is either an error in the definitions or it is a deliberate injection by trolls in one or more shared signature/black lists libraries that many AV share/use.

Cas29HG

Thank you for replying, jnebbe. I apologize for my rant. I ended up spending 4 hours of my Sunday night fighting with Bitdefender to no avail, and another 2 hours this morning. I've done the "Submit False Positives" before for another program that Bitdefender had flagged as an ATC4 virus, but never received a response. This was months ago. It's now a whitelisted folder and program.

I took your advice and disabled real time protection. I was able to re-install the add-on modules for Rainmeter and it works again. Although, disabling RTP seems to defeat the purpose of even having Bitdefender installed. I think the other modules of Bitdefender Total Security 2018 are active. Now, I'm just worried about what will happen when I do by bi-monthly scans. Will the scan bork Rainmeter again (causing me to re-install the program)? After 6 hours of troubleshooting, I really don't want to deal with this for a bit until I have more free time if Bitdefender decides Rainmeter is again a FALSE POSITIVE virus.

By the way, it looks like the flagging of Firefox seems to have been for my profiles in Firefox (which doesn't make a lot of sense). In the end, I just whitelisted the program and folders. This was a tedious task. Bitdefender "should" automatically whitelist programs and folders if I go through the trouble of restoring files/folders it has quarantined, but it doesn't.

Thank you again for your response.

Walaneh

Some anti-virus like Mcafee are giving false virus alerts for my website https://dangerousmother.com when it is hosted with Hostgator (#1) with high level of protection for hosting servers.

Bitdefender is most likely among the culprits who is blocking my website and people are denied good websites with all the information, videos, news, events etc..

Kaspersky Lab and Norton Security say https://dangerousmother.com is 100% safe.