KoRnGtL15
Premium
join:2007-01-04
Grants Pass, OR
|  Playing online games a risk?
When playing pc games. Usually its best to close every thing to get best performance. My sister plays the pirates online game. Is it safe to close my software firewall and disable my anti virus when playing online? I also have a router as well. Not exactly sure of the risk. For now, I have told her to play with that stuff enabled. |
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Cudni
La Merma - Vigilado
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-20
Someshire
| it is not safe to disable AV because
»www.techworld.com/security/news/···D=101983
"...
Gamers can make easy targets for criminals because some of them disable anti-virus software to boost gaming performance
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Cudni
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"Mercifully, he hit him with the soft end of the pistol."
Help yourself so God can help you.
Microsoft MVP, 2006 - 2008 |
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DownTheShore
Maddie Knows Poopie
Premium
join:2003-12-02
Beautiful NJ
clubs:
| reply to KoRnGtL15
Read that article, which was interesting. Showing my ignorance about this, but if one runs a cracked game that has malware in it, wouldn't it be picked up by one's AV, AS, AT, FW or whatever? Wouldn't the malware be picked up when the software was either downloaded or installed or run?
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Life is simply one damned thing after another. |
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dannyboy 950
Premium
join:2002-12-30
Port Arthur, TX | reply to KoRnGtL15
Only if they have a definition written for it. If they are useing an unknown exploit or a new variant its a new ball game |
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Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
East Granby, CT
 ·Cox HSI
1 edit | reply to KoRnGtL15
I would agree with the advised caution by the previous posters. Map the required ports through your router and firewall instead of dropping the firewall. Leave the anti-virus running. Many game servers will "update" your game files with modification patches and who knows what else. Leaving the utilities on can be annoying, but the protection is necessary. In my case, when playing COD4, punkbuster will update itself while I am playing, and my firewall immediately catches the MD5 sig change and blocks it. This of course bounces me out of the game server until I approve the update. It's annoying, but it only happens once or twice a month, and I like having the firewall looking over my shoulder!
(Edited for grammar error.)
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My Jeep is not an SUV. Your SUV is not a Jeep. |
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Thug21
Just Chillin'
Premium
join:2005-08-21
2 edits | If you have a decent gaming machine and use a light running AV, there won't be any difference weather it is on or off.
For example, I have a gaming laptop (2.5 ghz dual core, Nividia 8800m gtx, 4 GB ram) and I have Avira, Sandboxie and Online Armor free running while I game. Even in the most resource hungry games like Crysis, there is no difference whether I have my security software on or off. |
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Finger2208
join:2001-04-07
Lindale, TX
| I would certainly recommend running AV while playing online games. I have a UT2004 dedicated server, and many UT servers run mods or other alterations of the game. Mine sends the necessary files via redirection in order for you to connect to my server. I suppose the redirection could be used for purposes other than sending compressed files needed for the specific server. I'm not aware of this ever happening, but it very easily could. |
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Kiwi
Premium
join:2003-05-26
USA
·Comcast
 ·Aristotle Internet
| reply to KoRnGtL15
I won't search for the old link, suffice to say that games make every attempt to disable protection, or have the user do so and one of those reasons is their own spyware set; on the whole their own spyware set does not create issues from that company game....
What it does do is open all kinds of backdoors for all kinds of malware, not associated with that game install.
I always recommend gamers have a drive set up specifically for gaming, as a primary drive, then no harm to sensitive information can occur and at the price of drives these days, it's not a hard thing to pay for; to maintain security of bank accounts and passwords. |
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Sindows 7
join:2006-09-13
Hope, BC
| reply to KoRnGtL15
It's a risk to your sanity.
The PC games on-line are full of cheaters and there's a huge community of hax and hax0r tools that manipulate the game.
If your the type of person that takes a month to be a uber player and then some 12 year old with a hack comes and ruins your $50 game, your whole outlook on computers starts to stink.
Games with root-kit protection and punk buster are less than welcoming, it's like a big open door right there.
If only my sidewinder mouse would work on a 360..
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