Bitdefender interfering with saving files in certain format, slowing down the save
I seem to have stumbled onto some strange Bitdefender behavior. If I create files in a format akin to "INI" format, they become very slow to save. I discovered this because I was creating some files using the TOML format, which is similar to INI format. I found they were very slow to save. Experimenting led me to discover that Bitdefender appears to be the cause.
As an example, I have a plain text file with this content (not including the --- lines):
---
test = 100
other_thing = "hello"
stuff = "whatever"
thing = 8
more_things = "hello there"
its_okay = "until here"
try_removing = "this line"
---
If I make any modification to this file (for instance typing random stuff at the end of the last line) and try to save it, it takes a few seconds to save. If I turn off Bitdefender's "Protection Shield", the problem disappears and the file always saves fast.
If I remove the last line, the file saves fine. If I then type junk at the end of the new last line (the one that says it's okay until here), it continues to save fine. However, if I add a new line after that line, it again is slow to save.
If I search and replace to replace all the = symbols by something else, even something very similar such as "==", the problem again goes away and the file saves fine.
Also, if I add a line at the top in the form of an INI section marker, such as "[heading]" (on a line by itself), the problem again goes away.
Again, if I disable Bitdefender's Protection shield at any time, the file saves quickly regardless of its contents. But enabling the protection shield causes a slowdown if the file's contents follow a particular format over (apparently) more than 6 lines.
I can only conclude that Bitdefender is using some weird heuristic to look for INI-like files being saved and somehow scanning them. This is very frustrating, however, as it is picking up harmless configuration files in TOML format that I'm trying to work with.
Am I correct that this INI-file-format heuristic is part of Bitdefender's "Protection Shield"? If so, why? What is so dangerous about files that consist of a series of lines, each line consisting of a label followed by an equals sign and then some more text? I don't want to turn off Bitdefender's protection, but how can I get it to not cause a slowdown on every attempt to write a file in this format? I've been happy with Bitdefender for years, but this is causing me to seriously reconsider using it, as it makes me worry about what other bizarre and potentially harmful heuristics it may be using without telling me.
