Fix Windows Defender issues

[PyvesB]

Hello, thanks for creating this repository! 👋🏻

Describe the bug

Eclipse, IntelliJ and other Java programs are significantly slowed down by Windows Defender. This makes Java development on Windows difficult: for example, an IDE may take several minutes to launch compared to a few seconds on other operating systems.

This issue was originally reported on the Microsoft Feedback Hub and initially received many upvotes, even though the voting system has since then been removed from the hub. Here's the full report written by Rolf T:

Windows Defender significantly slows down access to jar files, even if these jars are correctly signed. As a result, any java process is significantly slowed down. This is especially true for IDEs such as Eclipse and IntelliJ which regularly access jar files while they are being used. This results in many random hiccups and slow downs of the processes, up to the point where they become unusable.
The only viable workaround seems to exclude these processes from being scanned by Windows Defender, which kind of defies the whole purpose of having the scans at all.

Just only running "jar -tf any.jar" makes Windows Defender spike on CPU usage.

See also:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=548443
https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2019/06/intellij-idea-2019-2-eap5-commit-from-local-changes-and-more/

The problem becomes worse on a laptop while on a battery power. To reduce battery consumption, the priority of Windows Defender seems to be lowered. As a result, the slowdown of the processes accessing a jar file is even worse.

To Reproduce

Install and launch Eclipse, IntelliJ or other Java programs on Windows.

Expected behavior

Windows Defender should not slow down Java programs, especially if these are signed properly.

Additional context

Some programs provide utilities to automatically add themselves to the Windows Defender exclusion lists and tamper with the antivirus's settings. This feels wrong and makes the Java ecosystem on Windows less secure.

[vogella]

Any progress here? Eclipse IDE is deadly slow on Windows with virus scanner active.

[Phillipus]

+1

Excluding my Eclipse folder and workspace from Windows Defender gives me a massive speed boost for Eclipse startup time.

[laeubi]

Excluding my Eclipse folder and workspace from Windows Defender gives me a massive speed boost for Eclipse startup time.

I'm waiting for the first maleware that aims at eclipse installation folders in the hope they are excluded from anti-virus/maleware scans... 👎

[merks]

Re eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.swt#10 (comment)

I started to write the following, but I later decided to keep the request focused on the tree selection issue:

One can easily see here that more time is spent "scanning" than in the actual process doing real work. And all the scanning seems to happen in the installer when creating the new installation and then each and every time any installation is launched....

Given this issue is now link to the tree selection issue, perhaps the powers that be looking at either issue will see both issues...

[rolfth]

IntelliJ suffers too. It has automatic detection for Windows Defender and offers to exclude directories:
https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006298560

[kjsmita6]

Using maven-wagon-plugin:merge-maven-repos from Eclipse to merge Maven repositories is slowed down about 20x with defender on. I would expect similar slowdowns with other processes that move files around.

Plugin info: https://www.mojohaus.org/wagon-maven-plugin/merge-maven-repos-mojo.html

The jar files are already downloaded on the computer - why do they need to be scanned when they are copied from one location to another on the same computer which downloaded them? Setting an exclusion for *.jar files has significantly sped it up.

Graph of defender CPU usage during a typical development day (span of about 2.5 hours). CPU peaks around 800% and reaches 300% often. I did not run a scan during any of these times - it was just in the background.

Edit: This is happening on Mac.

[vogella]

cc @stephenrwalli can you help to address this, this makes the Eclipse IDE very slow on Windows.

[karianna]

CC @brunoborges and @gdams - I know we've been able to talk to the Defender Team about this before and it's a bit of whack-a-mole with getting exceptions and then newer versions perhaps overriding that. Can we engage on a more permanent fix?

[brunoborges]

There is an ongoing effort about this, in general. Not just for Java. Defender design impacts all developer tools and languages.

I don't have more info to share at the moment, though.

But rest assured, Windows team is looking into this.

[TIBCOeddie]

Any chance for an end-of-year Defender team update?