Thanks, Swordmaker. Assessments are enabled.
There is another Apple “thingie” (I was a career corporate security type, so that is sometimes my level of expertise) that downloads malware blocking code from Apple in the background. I can never remember the name.
Should I be concerned that that function might be turned off, as well?
If you install one of the anti virus packages from a third party, they will turn it off, because they have to allow the downloads to not be intercepted for their software to scan it. . Otherwise, no.