Is it safe to play online games without any anti-virys or stuff like that?

[AirForceElite]

Hello.
Let me explain my situation here.

I have 2 antiviruses on at the same time (Kaspersky and AVG)
I also have WinPatrol and Sygate Firewall..

Now, what I was curious about is wether I can turn off all those programs that slow down my game play?

The game is World of Warcraft and I want to play without any lags, so I was thinking of turning off the antiviruses off while I play the game.

One more time, I don't care if they lag my machine (AMD 64 3200+/512mb pc3200 corsair ram/ati 9800 pro) while I surf internet or do various stuff.

All I care about is wether I can turn them off while I play the game.
Like can I get viruses while playing the game?

 

[imported_Zeke]

okies you wont be getting viruses from WoW, but I would leave a firewall up so you dont get a virus from someone else. I think it would be fine to turn off the virus protection for a bit.

 

[AirForceElite]

Cool Zeke, thanks for the reply.
But what I want to make sure is if okay....
either yes or no.

If i still can get a virus by not downloading anything from the internet, then i will keep the on...if i cant, then i would be happy to turn them off while playing wow

 

[Calin]

You can get infected by some external attack (a firewall's job is to protect you from that). If you close all other programs that might "accidentally" download stuff, then you are pretty sure.

You could create a rule on the firewall to disable all Internet access except wow (anything except the IP address of the wow server, or something like that). That way, the antivirus could be safely deactivated

Calin

 

[biostud]

Don't turn it off, but only run one antivirus at the time otherwise they might conflict. And they won't slow your system significantly during gameplay.

 

[duragezic]

I've gamed online pretty much daily for the past several years and never used an AV program, much less having it on auto-protect and never had any virii/hacks/etc! But, YMMV. You can't get a virus from joining a Quake server or whatnot, so I would just close everything down except your firewall if you are getting slowdowns during gameplay.

 

[Malak]

Holy paranoia batman!

You aren't going to get a virus while playing a game. If you don't visit random untrustworthy sites put on geocities or some junk, or open emails from your best bud that say I love you, then you are pretty safe....

 

[Gentle]

A hardware firewall will not add any perceivable latency to your online gaming.

A software firewall will add a negligible amount (1-5ms at most) latency to your online gaming.

It is *VITAL* to have a firewall active at all times if you are on a broadband connection.

Otherwise your computer can be compromised, not by the game, but by people just scanning IP ranges.

-----

Some lag may be expected while online gaming... It depends on how far you are from your gaming server (in hops) and to a lesser extent, how "busy" the game server is.

Gentle

 

[Carnage4]

You might also want to only run one virus scanner at a time. I've seen a lot of systems run Mcafee VirusScan and Norton AV at the same time and lock up for about 5 minutes on startup while the two battle it out (Norton always won )

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Carnage4
You might also want to only run one virus scanner at a time. I've seen a lot of systems run Mcafee VirusScan and Norton AV at the same time and lock up for about 5 minutes on startup while the two battle it out (Norton always won )

That's a very good point.

More is not always better, that's for sure.


As much as i hate Norton, i hate McAfee more, so that's a good funny story

I often test new-to-me programs out on my old PC before installing them on my main rig, which meant a funny bootup when i had Antivir, Kaspersky, & another antivirus program fighting each other :laugh:

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: Carnage4
You might also want to only run one virus scanner at a time. I've seen a lot of systems run Mcafee VirusScan and Norton AV at the same time and lock up for about 5 minutes on startup while the two battle it out (Norton always won )

Definitely,

It is not a good idea to run 2 Antivirus programs simultaneously. I worked on many student computers at Syracuse University where the student didn't follow the instructions when running our PC protect CD at the beginning of the semester when connecting to the school network. The result was that many students ended up with the univeristy required McAfee running together with Norton. The computers would barely operate and it was a bare to get them to even respond to get Norton off. Chose one AV and use it only, otherwise they fight and jam up your PC.

It is *VITAL* to have a firewall active at all times if you are on a broadband connection.

Otherwise your computer can be compromised, not by the game, but by people just scanning IP ranges.

Yeup, that is what I learned in my series of net work security classes - the bad guys are scanning constantly looking for open doors.