I want to download bitcoin core to become part of the honest node community

[JoeyWildwood]

how will this effect my laptops ability to function?  are there any downsides to downloading bitcoin core?  is there any security risk to myself?

[1713963786]

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[1713963786]

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[1713963786]

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[1713963786]

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[chanz]

I don't think it effects your laptop sure it does take some ram but otherwise there's no downside i think.
https://bitcoin.org/en/download

[nwfella]

how will this effect my laptops ability to function?  are there any downsides to downloading bitcoin core?  is there any security risk to myself?

Provided you don't do something crazy like 'setgenerate true' under your bitcoin CLI or something the processor and RAM and Bandwidth requirements aren't to burly.  Currently my bitcoin-qt client is using ~300MB of RAM, and averaging < 100kbs for bandwidth consumption running a full node with 22 peers.  Processor utilization rarely exceeds 1-2% and that's when I have incoming/outgoing transactions taking place.

[DrG]

The only major strain is usually disk access.  If you're using a hard drive it might undergo some wear and tear but a SSD should be fine.

[nwfella]

The only major strain is usually disk access.  If you're using a hard drive it might undergo some wear and tear but a SSD should be fine.

Excellent point.  I also forgot to mention that HD requirements currently for the bitcoin blockchain sit at ~21,283MB according to blockchain.info

source: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size

[DrG]

Oh, also make sure your ISP doesn't have an upload or bandwidth limit.  I was running 2 full nodes until AT&T and another carrier both trimmed back my monthly bandwidth to 250GB.

Mining may not use any bandwidth but hosting a node does.