Many programs are designed with convenient features to keep other installed applications up-to-date, so that you can play them whenever you want without needing to manually find that there is an update available, and then wait for that update to be downloaded and installed.
However, when playing online games these downloads can cause network congestion and compete with your game for CPU cycles.
Thus, it is recommended that you pause any such downloads until you are finished playing.
Some programs particularly prone to causing this issue for gamers can be found below.