Frank, I would not advise turning your antivirus nor firewall off, if you are connected to the internet or are loading files from CD's, emails, flash drives or other media that you have received from someone. New viruses, malware, spyware are created at a rate of 1000's per day. The bad guys are always looking for a way to hack your system. Embeding viruses, key-loggers, and others in MP3's, JPG's (pictures) and even holiday greeting cards is a current favorite of the hackers.

You will sometimes hear this suggestion in regards to stopping or reducing audio drop-outs as these defenses can sometimes hog system resources.

I would not recommend that you shut these systems off for any reason unless your system is a non-internet dedicated box. Any website that you can't get to is probably a site you should not go to. There was a proble about 6 months or so ago with sites that were not able to handle 64 bit, high cypher (256K) browser, but that appears to have been resolved now....at least on any site I have visited lately.

Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2025, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3