Antivirus and the half-second pause

[Shadow Trader]

Security software scans files, network connections, and processes in real time. A trading terminal handles all three constantly: reading history files, writing logs, and maintaining a stream of network traffic.

An aggressive scanner can add small delays to each operation. Most of the time, it goes unnoticed. But under heavy load, such as during news, when the platform writes lots of data, scan overhead can add up to noticeable lag.

Real-time scanning of the platform's data folder is the usual culprit. Every tick written to history triggers a file check.

Adding the terminal's folder and its executable to the antivirus exclusion list often reduces the lag. It's a standard recommendation from platform vendors, but many users don't know about it.

Firewalls can also interfere, especially those that inspect traffic. Whitelisting the broker's server addresses avoids this.

The change is easy to test. Measure the order execution time and platform responsiveness before and after adding the exclusions, with a log of response times over a few sessions.

It carries a small security trade-off, so exclusions should be limited to the trading folder from a trusted source.

Did adding antivirus exclusions make a measurable difference on the trading machine?