Hi nklemp

 

Welcome to the Community Forums.

 

The short answer is (i)  NO NEED for Windows Defender when you have WSA installed & (ii) YES, you MUST keep Windows Firewall enabled even when WSA is installed.

 

OK, some further detail to support the above.

 

Windows Defender and WSA will quite happily run together at the same time...but given that WSA does everything that Windows Defender does, and also much more and so, so much better (evcen Microsoft have admitted that Windows Defender is second rate) there is no need to keep WInodws Defender enablned (you cannot  uninstall it as it is part of Windows...but it can be disabled).

 

Windows Firewall or another 3rd Party Firewall must be run in concert with WSA, because the way that WSA is designed it will handle the outgoing connections for you but given that Windows Firewall is now a very strong firewall and handlews incoming connections particularly well WSA chose not to cover that are and leave it to Windows.  Having said that if you have a preferred 3rd Party firewall then you can use that instead of Windows Firewall to handle the incoming connections, and WSA will coexist well with that (but if you do make sure that you do not run Windows Firewall and the 3rd Party Firewall together...that is a nono).

 

Hope that helps to answer your questions?  If not then please ask away and we will try to answer further.

 

Regards, Baldrick

 

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