Exception list limits?

[SCHUMI4EVER]

Over the years I've been jumping between AVG, Avast! and Avira/AntiVir, currently on Avira but it seems an issue has popped up which might force me back to Avast! (not planning on going anywhere near AVG other than as a last resort). The issue that's cropped up is that Avira's exception list has a 60000 character entry limit...which I've now exceeded completely invalidating the entire list. Now I can narrow it down some but that means leaving ever-larger chunks of my system without real-time protection and I'd much rather just use an Antivirus program what doesn't force me to do that.
So to finally get to my question, what limits if any does the exception list in Avast! have? Will I be running into the same 60000 character limit or worse? Does it do anything else that limits the exception list from truly excluding and completely and entirely ignoring everything on it?
Or is it safe to switch?

[DavidR]

A long time ago I believe there was a limit, but that as far as I'm aware that shouldn't be an issue now.

I would have to question the need for such large exception lists, e.g. what is the requirement ?

Avast allows for the use of wildcards (? single character and * multiple characters), but as you rightly say wildcards can leave holes and should be defined carefully. If you have a folder that you don't want scanned, don't just exclude the folder with a wild card exclude specific file types within that folder. e.g. c:\exclusion_folder\*.wmv and do that for each specific file type in that folder, with exception to executable files or something could slip in there and be allowed to run.

[SCHUMI4EVER]

I just have a lot of false positives and they're files I can't submit for verification because they're personal (and in some cases fall into a bit of a legal gray area whereas most of the others are detected because of their hooking/code modifying nature (game trainers) or because of the packer used on them). They are all legit false positives that will always be seen as similar to a virus thanks to either their nature or their packer. Have somewhere over 100 of them by now.

Ideally I'd just like to add the files themselves (most are executables) to an exception list although I've sometimes in the case of a game with a trainer or two being detected added the whole folder as an exception (and Avira is forcing me to do that more and more thanks to it's limit).

So you don't think I'm going to run into any sorts of problems doing that (beyond of course one day falsely identifying something as a false positive)?

[DavidR]

Well the real solution if they are genuinely false positives it to confirm at virustotal and submit the sample to avast and if confirmed as an FP, the detection would be corrected, good for you and all other avast users that might be effected.

Personally I don't like excluding executables, I have nothing in my Global Exclusions, because that not only excludes files from on-demand scans but also on-access. I have some exclusions within a specific scans exclusions, they are only excluded in that particular on-demand scan (some samples/tools/Eicar test, etc.), to avoid allowing executables to be run.

That is why I place a higher importance to resolving what may be considered FPs than simply excluding them as they (or the exclusion) may bite you.

[SCHUMI4EVER]

I know but unfortunately I can't submit them.

I don't know whether you know a site called Cheathappens but their trainers are keyed to specific users and if someone else where to try and use it then I might lose my lifetime membership and with it access to any of the trainers. Similarly I don't think AV makers would be particularly pleased to have to verify files which could be seen as illegal depending on how they're used (in my case simply because I hate switching out DVDs all the time or because I can't be online all the time). Nor would submitting the hobby projects me and some friends code benefit anyone else or any future projects since the packer might change down the line or something else.

So I have to add them all the exclusion list. By the way, I didn't mean a global exclusion on exe files, just the specific ones giving me problems such as say a trainer for the game Crysis.

Other than the risk of choosing to trust those files (and I've been doing so for many years already with no issue for quite a lot of them) can you see any other hindrances to simply adding them all the exclusion list?

[igor]

The list of exclusions is certainly not meant for huge lists.
First - I'm quite sure there is some limit, and it won't be very big, and lookup in the list is not optimized, so having a huge list of exclusions will actually slow down all scanning to some degree.

[SCHUMI4EVER]

Oh well, guess I'll just stick to Avira then and just keep going backwards a parent folder whenever I notice that the exceptions stopped working slowly opening up ever more of my system.
Cheers.