Excluding Scanning Steam Safe?

[Giftz]

Hello. I use the free version of Avast antivirus and it has given me multiple false positives, mostly from random game exe files in my steam common folder. So I decided I think I am going to try keeping an exclusion for this folder and it won't be regularly scanned in my full system scans.

Is it safe to do this? I legitimately downloaded all the files through steam; they can't easily be infected or anything can they? I might turn the exclusion off every 10th scan or so to scan the steam common folder as well but I think I will keep the exclusion the majority of the time if this is safe.

Thank you for any opinions!

 

[hedwar2011]

The Steam common folder isn't a typical target of malware/virus/rougeware/ransomware programs. Do keep in mind that you are able to adjust what folder it gets saved to and if you've deviated from the default it may not be such a good idea to add an exclusion for that particular folder.

When I made the decision to change my folder for Steam, I created a completely new one and saved it away from other folders that were valuable to me just on the off chance something happened. It could also be me being severely overprotective of my junk too though.

 

[Giftz]

Ok that's good to know, thanks hedwar. Yeah I only use my one HDD exclusively for steam because I want to have enough space on it.

Another question I thought of if anyone knows is does Avast / any antivirus always take way longer to scan every single time it detects a virus? I assume this is because once it thinks there is a virus it does a much more thorough scan? There might be a way to tweak this somewhere not that you might want to, just curious.

Because even though they are false positives, any time avast thinks it detects a virus the scans take like 35-50 mins to do a full system scan instead of like 17-22 mins. At first I thought it was because when you had a virus on your computer the virus was slowing down the scan itself. But then I realized it was taking this long even though they were false positives.

Thanks for any info on that too. Curious, and I can't google it to find a specific answer to this!

 

[Giftz]

Anyone know that can answer that? ^ (do Avast scans always take longer when they detect a virus, even if it's a false positive)

Want to make sure it's not just me and not unusual. Sorry, don't want to spam open another topic.

 

[hedwar2011]

Ok that's good to know, thanks hedwar. Yeah I only use my one HDD exclusively for steam because I want to have enough space on it.

Another question I thought of if anyone knows is does Avast / any antivirus always take way longer to scan every single time it detects a virus? I assume this is because once it thinks there is a virus it does a much more thorough scan? There might be a way to tweak this somewhere not that you might want to, just curious.

Because even though they are false positives, any time avast thinks it detects a virus the scans take like 35-50 mins to do a full system scan instead of like 17-22 mins. At first I thought it was because when you had a virus on your computer the virus was slowing down the scan itself. But then I realized it was taking this long even though they were false positives.

Thanks for any info on that too. Curious, and I can't google it to find a specific answer to this!

Anyone know that can answer that? ^ (do Avast scans always take longer when they detect a virus, even if it's a false positive)

Want to make sure it's not just me and not unusual. Sorry, don't want to spam open another topic.

It's not just Avast that does that. Virus scanners in general oftentimes will deeply scan a computer unless otherwise indicated in the pre-scan options for it not to. Whether or not it detects, or thinks it detects (false positivies), has no bearing on how deep the program scans or not.

Don't get this process confused with one virus scanner (protection suite, etc) being a bigger resource hog than another. A good example of this was Norton products from say 10 years ago. You could hardly do anything at all (even just sitting idle) when a scan was taking place or just under normal usage because it was such a hog on the backend and behind everything else. Nowadays we normally don't see this problem but I'm sure there are some anti-viral suites that are better than others.

When dealing with something like that its best to do the research first.

 

[Giftz]

It's not just Avast that does that. Virus scanners in general oftentimes will deeply scan a computer unless otherwise indicated in the pre-scan options for it not to. Whether or not it detects, or thinks it detects (false positivies), has no bearing on how deep the program scans or not.

Don't get this process confused with one virus scanner (protection suite, etc) being a bigger resource hog than another. A good example of this was Norton products from say 10 years ago. You could hardly do anything at all (even just sitting idle) when a scan was taking place or just under normal usage because it was such a hog on the backend and behind everything else. Nowadays we normally don't see this problem but I'm sure there are some anti-viral suites that are better than others.

When dealing with something like that its best to do the research first.

Hey, hedwar, thanks for more info and help! The part I underlined is what I want to clarify about. So you mean antivirus scans are not meant to take longer to do a scan depending on if they detect a virus(or false positive) or they detect nothing? This is why I think it's weird for me it always does take longer if it says it detects something.

In my case with Avast scans always take a predictable range of time if they do not detect a virus- usually like 17-22 mins.
If they do detect a virus (or think there is a virus because it's a false positive) the scan will always take almost 2-3x longer to scan and run for like 35-50 mins.

So from what I've experienced whether or not Avast thinks there is a virus or not it will always impact how long a scan runs for, which is why it's really annoying getting false positives that also take much longer to scan. I am curious and wanted to ask if this is abnormal or just the standard way that Avast works?

Thanks for any help!

 

[hedwar2011]

It's not just Avast that does that. Virus scanners in general oftentimes will deeply scan a computer unless otherwise indicated in the pre-scan options for it not to. Whether or not it detects, or thinks it detects (false positivies), has no bearing on how deep the program scans or not.

Don't get this process confused with one virus scanner (protection suite, etc) being a bigger resource hog than another. A good example of this was Norton products from say 10 years ago. You could hardly do anything at all (even just sitting idle) when a scan was taking place or just under normal usage because it was such a hog on the backend and behind everything else. Nowadays we normally don't see this problem but I'm sure there are some anti-viral suites that are better than others.

When dealing with something like that its best to do the research first.

Hey, hedwar, thanks for more info and help! The part I underlined is what I want to clarify about. So you mean antivirus scans are not meant to take longer to do a scan depending on if they detect a virus(or false positive) or they detect nothing? This is why I think it's weird for me it always does take longer if it says it detects something.

In my case with Avast scans always take a predictable range of time if they do not detect a virus- usually like 17-22 mins.
If they do detect a virus (or think there is a virus because it's a false positive) the scan will always take almost 2-3x longer to scan and run for like 35-50 mins.

So from what I've experienced whether or not Avast thinks there is a virus or not it will always impact how long a scan runs for, which is why it's really annoying getting false positives that also take much longer to scan. I am curious and wanted to ask if this is abnormal or just the standard way that Avast works?

Thanks for any help!

The increase in time you're talking about could also be when Avast is attempting to either quarantine or repair or both the file associated with being infected. If it's a true false positive, which Avast won't know the difference, depending on what its identified as could increase that time as well.