Now it's literally malware
If you know it is not malware then why do you call it malware?
And what type of antivirus software makes me report false positives before they get fixed?
Every type. How can something be fixed if the programmers don't know that something is broken?
Bitdefender constantly uses 1MB of my disk space.
The smallest installation is already 6.5 Mb and that is packed.
How much disk space avast is using depends on the components you have installed. On my system it uses around 1 Gb.
If you have a (relatively) new system as you say, I suspect that something is wrong.
avast shouldn't slow down things on it.
We can try to help you but you will need to provide some information.
What exact version of avast do you have ?
Is it a upgrade or a clean installation ?
What OS/SP ?
Any other security software installed ? (or did you have)