I liked you post, but your UNNECESSARY PROGRAMS is not very good for "newbies".
A firewall IS a MUST have, I strongly disagree with the idea of not running a firewall when you don't have a router. Even on "campus", because you can be "hack" from the inside, attackers are not always on the NET. So, I would only recommend firewall deactivation to people that are not on campus and that are behind a GOOD hardware firewall. Many cheap routers comes will less than secure default configuration and typical software firewall, don't take much resources.
I am an IT professionnal, and I'm always surprised to hear people not recommending firewall usage. Firewall are very strong, they can even protect you from unknown threat and yet unpatched security holes.
If you really think that your software firewall cut your in-game performance it's because you have another problem, you don't have enough RAM or have too much crap running in background. Firewall is NOT crap running in the background, it's a very useful application that protects you from hackers/attacks/viruses.
My gaming PC with 512Megs of RAM is running 24/7 these applications in background :
- Zone Alarm (Software Firewall)
- MyNetWatchMan (Firewall monitoring/reporting software)
- NAV2003 (Anti-Virus with all protection ON)
- Miranda (ICQ and MSN open-source client)
- Seti@Home (2 instances)
And I play FarCry, HALO, WC3 and other games without slowdown, because these apps are well coded and use near to none resources in background. I never stop any of these apps. to play my games.
Yes, it's important to not run CRAP in beckground. And the hardest thing, it's to learn to dicern what can be run and what can't be run in background on a PC. Your article is a good first draft!
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<b><font color=red>GO!</font color=red> <font color=blue>HABS!</font color=blue> <font color=red>GO!</font color=red></b>
A firewall IS a MUST have, I strongly disagree with the idea of not running a firewall when you don't have a router. Even on "campus", because you can be "hack" from the inside, attackers are not always on the NET. So, I would only recommend firewall deactivation to people that are not on campus and that are behind a GOOD hardware firewall. Many cheap routers comes will less than secure default configuration and typical software firewall, don't take much resources.
I am an IT professionnal, and I'm always surprised to hear people not recommending firewall usage. Firewall are very strong, they can even protect you from unknown threat and yet unpatched security holes.
If you really think that your software firewall cut your in-game performance it's because you have another problem, you don't have enough RAM or have too much crap running in background. Firewall is NOT crap running in the background, it's a very useful application that protects you from hackers/attacks/viruses.
My gaming PC with 512Megs of RAM is running 24/7 these applications in background :
- Zone Alarm (Software Firewall)
- MyNetWatchMan (Firewall monitoring/reporting software)
- NAV2003 (Anti-Virus with all protection ON)
- Miranda (ICQ and MSN open-source client)
- Seti@Home (2 instances)
And I play FarCry, HALO, WC3 and other games without slowdown, because these apps are well coded and use near to none resources in background. I never stop any of these apps. to play my games.
Yes, it's important to not run CRAP in beckground. And the hardest thing, it's to learn to dicern what can be run and what can't be run in background on a PC. Your article is a good first draft!
--
<b><font color=red>GO!</font color=red> <font color=blue>HABS!</font color=blue> <font color=red>GO!</font color=red></b>