Am I really protected ?

[Mayflower]

As EA says "Close all anti-virus/spyware software before running BF2 when playing online"

It is really safe to close them all ?

There is my software : ZoneAlarm Pro, AVG, EwidoGuard

[DimmuBorgir]

i dont use virus protection, and i only run spyware scans once a week. closing them all is fine

[Dangerboy]

As EA says "Close all anti-virus/spyware software before running BF2 when playing online"

It is really safe to close them all ?

There is my software : ZoneAlarm Pro, AVG, EwidoGuard

Just turn them back on when your done playing.

[imported_<GN>John]

Well there has been a "backdoor" open in battlefield 2. I honestly wont play until it has been resolved.

[Retribution.]

i thought this thread was about life insurance.

[Daemon]

I play with norton running all the time and never had any issues, altho i turned the worm protection cause it was annoying as hell when the window was poping up asking to permit bf2.exe to connect. For some reason it aint remembering it in nortons exceptions.

[The_Misfit]

I've run with Norton Systemworks 2002 and the Free Microsoft anti-spyware running in the background with no notable problems...

If youre gaming, then closing them really won't hurt anything, unless you plan on alt-tabbing out mid-game to surf some pr0n...:)

[Saureco]

Turning off your virus protection won't be an issue with BF2. It's not like Call of Duty where you can automatically download patches or mod data when you connect. For something like that, then yes, you might want to keep your AV up to protect against that. But since BF2 has no such auto-download features and Punkbuster is only letting you play on pure client servers, you are relatively safe.

The old bit of advice is to turn off everything you aren't using when you are playing a game to maximize CPU and RAM resources.

[Laike]

I dont shut my stuff off, it's just certain anti viruses and eat up alot of resources. Shutting them off may improve performance. I find with my Trend micro, and Sygate firewall, turning it off and on makes no difference. I'll stay safe.

[cha0tic]

I only keep my Ventrilo, xfire and Norton Internet Security running. You don't want to ever turn all of your anti-virus/spyware software when you play because there are worms and bugs that sneak in. A little decrease in FPS is well worth having to reformat cause of a worm like sasser infecting your computer.

[notbob]

All those programs are just eating away system resources, Nortons is the worst.
I use AVG, a free anti-virus program that you can run and turn off. I scan my machine
daily and I use windowsupdate.com and keep my system up to date.
To remove the adware/spyware I run Ad-aware and spybot once a week.
Most people get infected from some peice of crap backdoor program they download
off kazaa or get in their email.

[NoSoup4You]

Yes. If you have a router, even more so, as the hardware firewall will protect you (somewhat) without interfering with the game.

[Spookie]

I use Zonealarm (free) for the firewall, that never goes off and Nod32 (better than that bloatware Norton & co. Not to mention beats them for containment of viruses) for virus scanning. It leaves such a small inprint on my RAM and CPU usage there is no point in turning it off.

[{AIrBoRnE}]

If you wanna play BF2, just turn off the virus stuff, but keep the spyware blocker on.

[GreatWhiteShark]

As EA says "Close all anti-virus/spyware software before running BF2 when playing online"

It is really safe to close them all ?

There is my software : ZoneAlarm Pro, AVG, EwidoGuard

It's like life m8........

To use a rubber, or not, to use a rubber........... when Fu**ing there is no 100% guarantee that the rubber will not burst!