16 replies to this topic

[craigathus]

Hi guys
I have some security concerns about online gaming.
A bunch of friends that I know and trust have suggested that it's OK to switch-off my "Antivirus" while playing on (our game server).
They turn-off theirs to improve game play.
I keep my "avast" Antivirus running.
Am I being over cautious?

Craig

[Andavari]

I'd personally leave it on. I know some software-based firewalls have a game mode, however I'm unaware of any antivirus or other antimalware with such functionality.

[craigathus]

Andavari, on Mar 5 2009, 08:40 AM, said:

I'd personally leave it on. I know some software-based firewalls have a game mode, however I'm unaware of any antivirus or other antimalware with such functionality.

Hi Andavari
I use Windows firewall and my ADSL modem has a firewall.
I'm not having any problems connecting or playing.
They suggested turning it "avast" off to improve FPS game play etc...
I will be keeping it ON!
Thanks for the quick reply

Craig

[Andavari]

craigathus, on Mar 4 2009, 03:50 PM, said:

They suggested turning it "avast" off to improve FPS game play etc...

If the AV produced a slowdown it could be configured to only scan infectable items, versus just turning it off completely. That may have been an issue like ten years ago with just about every AV due to how the old Windows OSes worked, but shouldn't be an issue with XP or newer, at least I don't think.

[DennisD]

Aren't you a Sandboxie user craig?

If you had real problems with a game, you would probably get away with having your browser Sandboxed. I'm not recommending you do that, but I believe Humpty surfs without an A/V running. Just his virtual apps.

Just a thought.

[Andavari]

From the posts Humpty has made he also has his stuff imaged for quick restoration too.

[craigathus]

Andavari, on Mar 5 2009, 08:53 AM, said:

If the AV produced a slowdown it could be configured to only scan infectable items, versus just turning it off completely. That may have been an issue like ten years ago with just about every AV due to how the old Windows OSes worked, but shouldn't be an issue with XP or newer, at least I don't think.

Not sure if this is worth a mention? however after scanning with "avast" my system always comes up clean, except for 3 files that are large (game map files)
avast describes them as "decompression bombs" they are "zip" files that installed with the game.
Malwarebytes & SuperAntiSpyware don't seem concerned with them.

[craigathus]

DennisD, on Mar 5 2009, 09:02 AM, said:

Aren't you a Sandboxie user craig?

If you had real problems with a game, you would probably get away with having your browser Sandboxed. I'm not recommending you do that, but I believe Humpty surfs without an A/V running. Just his virtual apps.

Just a thought.

Hi Dennis
Yes I do use Sandboxie for Firefox & Thunderbird.

[Keithuk]

I've never had any of my anti-virus apps running all the time whats the point? Any file you are given or download you check check if its clean before you use it. Anti-virus apps use system resources and if you don't have much then turn them off.

I was on a Warez site last year and it said it needs to download an ActiveX for the site I click yes and waited for a few seconds then AVG popped up and said a virus in Temporary Internet Files which it deleted. Now I have it turned off so how did it find it?

All you Win2k/XP/Vista users just look at all those icons in the systray, each one is an app thats using resources and if your not using that app then turn them off, your system will run a lot faster. Thats a great thing about CC you can remove items on startup with Win98SE but on later operating systems you can switch them off and on. I can do this manually which I've done for years until CC came along.

[YoKenny]

craigathus, on Mar 4 2009, 04:36 PM, said:

Hi guys
I have some security concerns about online gaming.
A bunch of friends that I know and trust have suggested that it's OK to switch-off my "Antivirus" while playing on (our game server).
They turn-off theirs to improve game play.
I keep my "avast" Antivirus running.
Am I being over cautious?

Craig

Do you see avast's blue ball spinning while using the game?

If you do then it is scanning files or the Web through Network Shield.

[craigathus]

YoKenny, on Mar 5 2009, 09:47 AM, said:

Do you see avast's blue ball spinning while using the game?

If you do then it is scanning files or the Web through Network Shield.

Hi Kenny
I can force the game to run in a window, and yes "avast" is active some of the time according to the system tray icon.

[Andavari]

craigathus, on Mar 4 2009, 04:07 PM, said:

except for 3 files that are large (game map files)
avast describes them as "decompression bombs" they are "zip" files that installed with the game.

It doesn't mean the file is infected, it means there's archives placed inside of another archive.
For example lets say you have a file named MainFile.zip and inside of it may be another archive(s) for example SubFile1.zip, SubFile2.zip, etc. Sort of a warning I suppose since some malware could be packed that way to hide, especially in password protected archives.

[craigathus]

Andavari, on Mar 5 2009, 09:20 PM, said:

It doesn't mean the file is infected, it means there's archives placed inside of another archive.
For example lets say you have a file named MainFile.zip and inside of it may be another archive(s) for example SubFile1.zip, SubFile2.zip, etc. Sort of a warning I suppose since some malware could be packed that way to hide, especially in password protected archives.

Yeah I Googled "Decompression bomb"

[Humpty]

Andavari, on Mar 5 2009, 06:04 AM, said:

From the posts Humpty has made he also has his stuff imaged for quick restoration too.

And only ever used through my own tinkering with the system and never a breach with Sandboxie.

Below is a sample of a 44.0 KB decompression bomb rar file that I have.

Quote

The file contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped, which again contains 16 zipped files, which contain 1 file, with the size of 4.3GB.

So, if you extract all files, you will most likely run out of space :-)

16 x 4294967295 = 68.719.476.720 (68GB)
16 x 68719476720 = 1.099.511.627.520 (1TB)
16 x 1099511627520 = 17.592.186.040.320 (17TB)
16 x 17592186040320 = 281.474.976.645.120 (281TB)
16 x 281474976645120 = 4.503.599.626.321.920 (4,5PB)

[DennisD]

Drifting slightly off topic that reminds me of the wager made in I think some old Chinese story.

The wager was to put one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, and then double the number of grains for each successive square.

Apparently, as the story goes, there aren't enough grains of rice in the whole of China to complete that. And no, I don't intend trying it.

[YoKenny]

DennisD, on Mar 5 2009, 10:08 AM, said:

Drifting slightly off topic that reminds me of the wager made in I think some old Chinese story.

The wager was to put one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, and then double the number of grains for each successive square.

Apparently, as the story goes, there aren't enough grains of rice in the whole of China to complete that. And no, I don't intend trying it.

Another bit of interesting trivia.

How long would it take to count to 1 million?
Google is your friend.

I don't even want to think about a Billion but I would like to hold the Billions the government are going to use to bail out GM and Chrysler in my bank account for one month though.

[Andavari]

YoKenny, on Mar 5 2009, 10:31 AM, said:

I don't even want to think about a Billion but I would like to hold the Billions the government are going to use to bail out GM and Chrysler in my bank account for one month though.

You and me too. The one month interest alone would be enough to live on for a long time.