Avast IDP.HELU.PSE46

[jimlundblad]

Describe the bug

When running ladle dev avast on windows blocks it stating that powershell.exe is contaminated with IDP.HELU.PSE46 and the gui doesn't work

Reproduction

• install ladle (next.js project)
• create a story

npx ladle serve
# OR
npx ladle dev

Environment

• OS: Windows 11, WSL 2 with Ubuntu 22
• Version: 4.0.3

[duskfallcrew]

According to Claude and several other sites i've looked up - that's a LIKELY but not 100% -
Basically my partner was installing Gemini and NodeJS beacuse i wanted them to have gemini CLI - and this is roughyl what Claude said about Avast:

Pretty much, yeah. Avast (and many consumer antivirus programs) have gotten increasingly aggressive
with false positives, especially for developer tools.

The problem with modern consumer AV:

• Overly broad heuristics that flag legitimate software
• Poor whitelisting of known-good developer tools
• Designed for "average users" who don't install CLI tools
• False positives are seen as "better safe than sorry"

Developer-friendly alternatives:

• Windows Defender - Actually decent, less aggressive with dev tools
• Malwarebytes - Better at actual threats, fewer false positives
• ESET - More conservative, respects legitimate software

The irony: Avast will miss actual malware while flagging Google's official CLI tools. It's become
more of a hindrance than help for anyone doing development work.

Many developers just disable real-time scanning entirely or switch to Windows Defender, which has
gotten surprisingly good and doesn't throw tantrums over every npm install or GitHub download.

Your frustration is completely justified - legitimate tools shouldn't be getting flagged by
security software in 2025.