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When Applications Don't Play Nicely

Jim Swepson

A friend of mine is a consultant and she doesn't easily have access to the latest technology and as such her trusty laptop is the mainstay of her business. She also uses her machine for personal stuff such as: online banking, online shopping, as well as her business and its applications. A good security system is of course essential.

Recently though she downloaded, at the “soft” insistence of her bank, a specific security application. It was to guarantee extra security whilst using her personal online banking facilities and so she downloaded it without too much thought, trusting that her bank would not allow her to download software that could cause problems.

It wasn't long after this that she noticed her laptop was running much slower, in fact over the space of a few months it became so slow that when finances allowed, she would invest in a new laptop.

When she wanted to place another application onto her laptop, she asked me if we could do this for her. We decided to update her laptop, and it wasn't long before it was noted that the CPU levels were unacceptably high. Even after the download the CPU was still running way higher than it should and her laptop was very very slow. She explained that she was planning on changing soon, as it had been getting too slow.

We decided to take a look and it and it wasn't long before we located the security application – which was interfering with another security application that she already had in place. Now I'm not saying this application doesn't do what it is purported to do, but on her particular laptop and with the security application she was already using it was causing major problems. We asked if we could take it off and she gave us permission to do so, unusually this took a very long time as we couldn't just remove it in the usual manner, we had to go onto the company's site to get download info to do this.

Finally, the security application was removed and within minutes her laptop became not just doubly faster but ten times faster! The CPU was behaving within normal parameters and she was ecstatic that her old laptop was responsive and fast! Happily by removing this security application she no longer needed to purchase a new one saving her hundreds of pounds.

I guess the moral of my story here isn't that all security applications have problems, not even that this particular application is a risky download. It's more about awareness. We often don't know how our applications in-situ can be impacted by new applications placed on our machines. It got me thinking that a knowledge of this would have made my friend re-think downloading this type of application.

When companies add new applications that can impact hundreds or thousands of machines, they should test not just the performance of the new application but also how it impacts applications in-situ.

But for the layman the risks are not considered. My advice to anyone downloading applications whether personal or business is do your homework. For the personal user, do a Google search and find out if there are any risks associated with downloading the application. For businesses, use a network emulator to replicate the conditions of your networked environment, run your application and your new applications and see how they react to each other. It's not rocket science, a simple application that seems safe can unfortunately cause mayhem! Mitigate the risk with awareness and research.

Jim Swepson is a Pre-sales Technologist at Itrinegy.

Related Links:

www.itrinegy.com

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When Applications Don't Play Nicely

Jim Swepson

A friend of mine is a consultant and she doesn't easily have access to the latest technology and as such her trusty laptop is the mainstay of her business. She also uses her machine for personal stuff such as: online banking, online shopping, as well as her business and its applications. A good security system is of course essential.

Recently though she downloaded, at the “soft” insistence of her bank, a specific security application. It was to guarantee extra security whilst using her personal online banking facilities and so she downloaded it without too much thought, trusting that her bank would not allow her to download software that could cause problems.

It wasn't long after this that she noticed her laptop was running much slower, in fact over the space of a few months it became so slow that when finances allowed, she would invest in a new laptop.

When she wanted to place another application onto her laptop, she asked me if we could do this for her. We decided to update her laptop, and it wasn't long before it was noted that the CPU levels were unacceptably high. Even after the download the CPU was still running way higher than it should and her laptop was very very slow. She explained that she was planning on changing soon, as it had been getting too slow.

We decided to take a look and it and it wasn't long before we located the security application – which was interfering with another security application that she already had in place. Now I'm not saying this application doesn't do what it is purported to do, but on her particular laptop and with the security application she was already using it was causing major problems. We asked if we could take it off and she gave us permission to do so, unusually this took a very long time as we couldn't just remove it in the usual manner, we had to go onto the company's site to get download info to do this.

Finally, the security application was removed and within minutes her laptop became not just doubly faster but ten times faster! The CPU was behaving within normal parameters and she was ecstatic that her old laptop was responsive and fast! Happily by removing this security application she no longer needed to purchase a new one saving her hundreds of pounds.

I guess the moral of my story here isn't that all security applications have problems, not even that this particular application is a risky download. It's more about awareness. We often don't know how our applications in-situ can be impacted by new applications placed on our machines. It got me thinking that a knowledge of this would have made my friend re-think downloading this type of application.

When companies add new applications that can impact hundreds or thousands of machines, they should test not just the performance of the new application but also how it impacts applications in-situ.

But for the layman the risks are not considered. My advice to anyone downloading applications whether personal or business is do your homework. For the personal user, do a Google search and find out if there are any risks associated with downloading the application. For businesses, use a network emulator to replicate the conditions of your networked environment, run your application and your new applications and see how they react to each other. It's not rocket science, a simple application that seems safe can unfortunately cause mayhem! Mitigate the risk with awareness and research.

Jim Swepson is a Pre-sales Technologist at Itrinegy.

Related Links:

www.itrinegy.com

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
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