PC steam game Team Fortress 2

if Valve themselves have dedicated servers? I dont think so, I think your best bet is to find some of the rentable dedicated servers, I think the chance of getting any infected things from there is pretty low (never happened to me in any game anyways) I do understand the concern tho, especially since youre new to pc gaming.

im fairly certain there is no risk of downloading anything malicious by joining a VAC protected server.

There is nothing dangerous with custom sounds. They will go into a very obscure file somewhere in the game's files. They won't clog up your computer. Just play on the dedicated servers, it's the only way to play Team Fortress 2, and almost all FPS games today.

im fairly certain there is no risk of downloading anything malicious by joining a VAC protected server.

DoomZaW

This.

I've been playing Valve's online games for the last decade, and downloaded many many things from the hundreds (if not thousands) of servers I've ever played on, and not once has my computer been compromised :)

I will echo other people's sentiment that there's no danger when playing on VAC servers. However, if you want, you can disable downloading any custom files in the options, but that also includes maps.

Almost every server will make you download things for TF2. Sometimes an intro tune, added radio, new maps or whatnot.
The best thing to do is to be very selective about what server you are going to play on (ping/mods/map rotation/etc) and favorite it when it's a good server.
Then you can stick to your favorite few and you won't have to download new stuff from new servers all the time.

I will echo other people's sentiment that there's no danger when playing on VAC servers. However, if you want, you can disable downloading any custom files in the options, but that also includes maps.

UpInFlames