Smart Definitions & ***firewall*** performance (sigh, sorry to raise this)

Ok, I have to apologize for this because all of the searches I've done on this extend too far into the past to be reliable, and recently don't seem to cover the firewall (afaict).  My apology is ahead of time in case I've botched this.

 

The total effect of the Smart Definitions so far seems to have the following properties, as exposed fairly painfully by both members here and staff:

  • Better download times at first and startups because of data loading
  • Very slight less malware coverage, because of not-in-wild malware
  • Moderate diskspace savings
  • No scanning differences as reported by one person at least

But what about the real time protection and malware detection?  Does a slower machine (like my 2006 dell inspiron 6000, or my 2006 P4 Dell 8300) exhibit less moment to moment performance impact?  (Perhaps from checking all port access against larger datasets repeatedly?)

 

Or is the firewall entirely heuristically rule based and therefore not affected by virus signatures?