First hacking now viruses? That's just a step too far.

[DELiSH]

If you're worried about hacking, take precautionary steps. The easiest way is using Sandboxie. (www.sandboxie.com) There's a free and paid version. Paid version allows creation of multiple sandboxes.

 

What you do is make a new sandbox and install your game in the box. Then examine the installed folders in the sandbox and set the sandbox settings to only allow access to the specific folders the game needs, as well as possibly the windows folder for dlls and such. You can specifically deny access to system password files and sensitive documents.

 

Restricting folder access like this will keep anything in the sandbox from accessing any information you don't want to share in case of a hack. If you do get hacked, getting rid of whatever trojan may have been embedded on your system is as easy as deleting the sandbox.

 

Some people prefer installing games/programs unto their system directly and then simply running them sandboxed. That has the advantage of being able to delete the sandbox after each run, without having to reinstall anything. On the other hand, installing into a sandbox means that once you're tired of a particular program or game, you simply delete the sandbox and it's completely gone, registry entries and all.

 

Personally I run all browsers in sandboxes and they're restricted from accessing most of my system, but it works just as well for games.

[Spaceritual]

Very interesting thread , although I have played computer games for ages I have only recently got into online multi-player and to be honest did not know it was so risky.

[KDStudios]

It's as risky as browsing the internet.

Theres only that chance and small percentage of users that will try attacking your computer.

Just like the chance of going on a malicious website and your protection failing.

 

It's just that multiplayer has MORE problems with it than just that.

- Screaming kids that shouldn't even be playing it

- Glitchers

- Bots

- Modded controllers (on consoles not sure about pc gaming but this seems to be on the increase)

 

The internet just has porn EVERYWHERE

 

That's the problem with multiplayer, people suck at the game that much that they NEED to cheat to play any better, I pity them.

[evilneko]

Very interesting thread , although I have played computer games for ages I have only recently got into online multi-player and to be honest did not know it was so risky.

 

It's not. It's less risky than browsing webpages for a number of reasons. So don't worry about it too much.