Hi,There have been numerous posts in this forum relating to access problems of various addons. Most problems were related to firewall, antivirus, add bloking and other programs running in the background. Apart from these inherent nuisances there is surely a frame rate drop in MSFA when running firewalls and antivirus programs.Therefore a general question: is it safe to turn off all firewalls antivirus, add blocking programs when connecting to squawkbox, servinfo, Vatsim, Roger Wilco and other addons for serious online flights? To what extent is Vatsim protected and will this protection be sufficient for us users?Michael

Michael,

I will not shut off my firewall and anti-virus for any reason and strongly recommend that youi don't.In my case I operate Windows XP and have the XP firewall disabled in lue of running norton. If I turned off Norton my entire system is open. Further more there is strong possibility of forgeetting to turn the protection back on when you are done and leaving yourself exposed.you will never get a professional in the IT, or security field to condone turning your system protection off. No it is not safe!>Hi,>>There have been numerous posts in this forum relating to>access problems of various addons. Most problems were related>to firewall, antivirus, add bloking and other programs running>in the background. >>Apart from these inherent nuisances there is surely a frame>rate drop in MSFA when running firewalls and antivirus>programs.>>Therefore a general question: is it safe to turn off all>firewalls antivirus, add blocking programs when connecting to>squawkbox, servinfo, Vatsim, Roger Wilco and other addons for>serious online flights? To what extent is Vatsim protected and>will this protection be sufficient for us users?>>Michael