[LLVMdev] Windows development and "virus" in LLVM test suite

[Óscar Fuentes]

Mikael Lyngvig <mikael at lyngvig.org> writes:

> I admit I belong to a small group of not-too-bright people who still aspire
> to use LLVM.  But I kind of see that as a highly valuable feature, insofar
> I convert this fact into something constructive (such as FAQ writing) :-)
>
> I actually did recommend people to disable their antivirus solution for two
> reasons - the aforementioned "virus" and the speed slowdown that they'll
> experience, but then somebody (can't remember who) reacted and said it
> wasn't a good idea to recommend people to disable their antivirus solution.

I agree about not recommending *people* to disable their antivirus. The
human beings that work with the LLVM test suite are not "people", they
ought to understand the implications of disabling the AV. Moreover, they
will be happy to have just another reason for not having an active AV
running on their machines. Quite a few AV packages are worse than most
of the malware they supposedly protect from.

> However, I see a nifty compromise visualising behind my eyes: Ask the user
> to add the LLVM source and build directories to their virus ignore list.
>  This will solve both issues.

No, they shall add the *specific* file that triggers the AV alert to the
ignore list, otherwise those directories could act as safe harbors for
malware. It is a good thing to put a warning on the web page that
explains how to obtain the LLVM test suite about the existence of such
file and suggesting to disable the AV while checking out the package and
to add the exception after that.