I'll move my PC setup / home studio to a different room and also get an additional SSD + RAM, so I thought it's a good time to do a clean install. I've been reading about the benefits of going offline, but can't afford it since my main computer is the only one I own aside from a crappy notebook I despise of. Would it be of any use if I made 2 windows users? One with no internet access for production and one with internet for por... personal use. Or I might as well just use my main account for everything?

 

I've been experimenting with using VirtualBox to run Windows guest inside to access internet, but restrict internet on host computer - although it worked quite well, I stopped using it, because performance of (youtube) videos on virtual machine is somewhat inferior,

on the other hand, I highly recommend a program called NetLimiter 4 which helps A LOT for cutting off unwanted network interactions when (or maybe I can say "before") they attempt to happen

 

Thanks for the suggestion! If your i7 with 32gb's couldn't handle VB smoothly my i5/16gb wouldn't stand a chance. If I were to use NetLimiter to stop some less than legit plugins from calling home can I block said plugins without blocking my legit Studio One so I could still use it's online features?

 

You can.
If you have more non-legit stuff than legit I advice you to use "whitelist mode" in your firewall or equivalent like netlimiter.
That means all programs are blocked unless you explicitly allow it.
You would allow chrome, studio one, for instance.

You'd still want to block the non-legit ones because eventually you'll want to use "normal mode", to allow a non frequently used program to access internet for instance.

Edited: lapsus, was white-list, not black-list (normal mode)

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2020

I looked into it and it seems like I can do it with the built-in firewall. I'll do this after I installed everything. I'll allow chrome and a few other programs, get every groove and stuff from S1 downloaded, let it be blocked and only lift it when I want to update. Thanks, good idea!

 

Glad to help. That's what I do usually. I use Kaspersky manually when I need a power-horse.
I suggest you this nice app for adding rules easily to Windows Firewall. It's small and portable, the rules are for Windows Firewall so you launch it, do your things and close it.
https://www.sordum.org/8125/firewall-app-blocker-fab-v1-6/

 

my music pc is always online and never in 15 years have i had issues with vst calling home

 

All good information here, but I have to add that other than the calling home and other online inconveniences/dangers, I find that having an offline, strictly Audio/DAW PC has another feature that will help your music more than nearly anything else. Having an offline PC keeps you from excusing yourself from your current project for what are nearly always weak reasons.
"But I just need to do one thing, real quick," is always muttered before you go to "quickly" check your FB or watch "...just one, brief tutorial on YouTube," and then you look up three hrs later, only to find that you're chatting with a handful of people about essentially nothing while half-watching a video of chimpanzees playing with kittens (or maybe just rooting around some audio site, finding free stuff you'll probably never actually use because you don't *really need it...not that there's a site like that. )
Strictly offline is the way to go.
Selah.

 

Thanks again Xupito, I downloaded the tool and put it in my keepers folder!

eXACT_Beats_ that's what I'd like to do, but rn can't justify the cost of one more capable PC and I like to kick back and play some games with friends/watch tutorials and series and stuff like that from time to time. I might get the new Xbox on release and use it for "consuming" and keep my PC strictly for creating. I think it can be a pretty cost-effective way to play some new AAA titles 4K and watch all kinds of streaming services.

 

I used this program
https://crystalrich.com/internetoff/
Turn on and off whenever you want in a second.

 

Nice one and also free, thanks man! It will do in combination w the firewall blocking thing for the time being.

 

First I went with internet off but it crashed after a few days and I couldn't turn the internet back on no matter what I tried, right before it came back my pc froze. The only thing that fixed it was letting the fixing tool that comes up before boot reset network to factory settings. After this, I asked the IT guy at work and he told me that I can create a shortcut of my ethernet port and right-click disable/enable it. So if any of you need an internet switch it's a lightweight option.

 

I just use windows 10 firewall control to limit specific apps, my DAWs get a little specialist treatment where they have custom rule sets that allow them connections to the DAW's home page (since they're all legal), and the update/authentication servers for the legit plugins I use, and everything else hits a LAN/loopback only rule

 

Dualboot Windows where the online Windows can put stuff on the offline windows partition (OK, offline Windows is not precidely offline - only firefox can access internet, plus: network adapter is disabled in normal operation) is exactly what I do. The way to go for me. Bootsector/BCD magic is necessary and things easily get complex and nerdy in that department, I hate to do but has to be done only once.