Does too many Applications affect your Internet connection speed?

[Chase]

It seems when I reinstall Windows Xp I have the fastest wireless Internet connection ever but when I install necessary programs my connection gets slower and slower and sometimes wont connect at all. Is this just a coincidence or is having too many applications actually effect your Internet connection speed?

[Dr. House]

Too many applications hogging your ram can slow your internet connection down but even moreso are applications that access the net! File sharing sites, messengers, etc! You may also be loaded with spyware!
Consider your internet connection a hose, An internet application as a certain amount of water! You can only run so much water thru it!

[Will F]

Not so much a matter of impacting your internet speed as the ability of the computer to handle it and the other apps you have running. CPU and ram can only handle so much. The lower the numbers on CPU, front side bus and ram, the more it slows the computer down when you open many programs.

[gabriel_lan]

Yes. Regardless of your internet bandwidth, your Pc has limits in its own pipe bandwidth ( the amount of data streams the processor can handle). Computers have resources that it allots out to the programs that are running. Resources include memory, data pipes, hardware calls including the drives,video, sound etc... Once you hit that limit, all the programs have to wait in line for their turn. The faster the components, the less wait.

[annorax64]

Having them installed on your hard drive won't affect anything -- as long as your not almost out of disk space.

Having them all running at the same time WILL slow down your computer.. and make it seem that your internet connection has slowed-down.

Ever little icon in your tray (lower right hand corner of your screen) represents a different program that is currently running on your computer. If there are a lot of them down there, then that means they are using up RAM. Try exiting some of those programs (you don't have to uninstall them from your hard drive) to see if your computer regains some of it's peppiness.