>What can I do to have my VFP program able to let the user log on to the internet and download the updated data?
>
>Like the Norton utilities, they have a Live update on virus patterns etc. Can this be done by using VFP?
>
>Do I need other external programs for this task? Or just the VFP alone is sufficient?

I would say you would need an OCX depending on the protocol you wish to use to detect if an update need to be done. But, all the rest can be easily done in Visual FoxPro.

You can query a Web transaction which a Visual FoxPro server will intercept. If there is a need to update than a signal can be sent to the application and have a Ftp process for the rest.

This is an approach. You can use other ones as well.