Aaargh!!! ZoneAlarm seems to mess things up - another Firewal to use...?

[donutbandit]

That's pretty much how Sygate works. If you don't like Kerio, you won't
like Sygate.

It's called user laziness. "I don't want to have to learn a few simple
things to use a superior product, so I'll use the inferior one that doesn't
require me to know jack sh*t."

Same thing applies to Zone Alarm, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and
all the other dumbed down programs. Isn't it funny that these are the
programs that always ultimately end up having issues?

I can't remember how many times Kerio vs. Sygate vs. Zone Alarm has been
discussed in this newsgroup. It seems to be almost weekly. We keep posting
the same information over and over for the next group of newbies who don't
know what Google is.

I won't comment on it again. A simple Google search will bring up all the
posted information, as well as web pages that explain in intricate detail
how to use Kerio and other programs.

 

[Derald]

For some reason, ZoneAlarm stops my internet connections even when like
5 minutes ago it worked and I haven't changed anything. Although I like
ZoneAlarm, I am wondering if there is something else that is better to
use

I don't know about "better" but the only freeware firewall that
I've used (Win98) that has never crashed, brought down the whole system
or exhibited the kinds of mystery anomalies you describe is Kerio
v2.1.5. Outpost, Z/A, and Sygate lead the pack of boneheads; the Sygate
one is the world's worst for suprise failures.

 

[Respect2Glory?]

["JunkMonkey"; Sun, 07 Mar 2004 14:55:20 GMT]

I settled on Sygate only because I thought it was a tiny bit easier to
use.

Definitely so, in my experience. Give Sygate a whirl.

About our limited research of free firewalls, we've found ZoneAlarm to
be one of the best. However, we're still open to debate about how well
it works with networked computers. I'm on WinXP with ZA and my hubby's
on WinME hoping our ZA on my computer is doing it's job. I've also
read about other ways hackers can get around firewalls... that makes
me wonder if our PC's can be any more secure.

I'm also running WinXp's Firewall. We've visited www.grc.com (Steve
Gibson's site) and have found ports on both PC's to be stealthed. I
wish we had more tests we could run about other port and security
issues. Grc.com also has a few more tests listed that we've ran, but
from what I've read I'm still not satisfied. We've been online for 10
years and we've never been hacked from an outside source. We've only
had trouble with a few trojans that we've evidently DL'd & installed
without scanning. I scan 'everything' now with anti-virus, anti-trojan
and Ad-Aware programs. I research everything & do not visit unfamiliar
sites anymore, read reviews at trusted tech-sites, and go from there.

Currently, this is our list of reviewed, tried & tested scanners
(besides firewalls) which BTW are are loaded on both our PC's:

AVG anti-virus (updates several times each week,
EasyCleaner or WebClean,
Spybot Search & Destroy,
SpywareBlaster,
a² (Trojan Remover),
SpyKiller,
Trojan Remover (still scans files/folders after expiration), and
WinPatrol (Scotty dog watches your startup items)

 

[donutbandit]

(e-mail address removed) (Respect2Glory?) wrote in

About our limited research of free firewalls, we've found ZoneAlarm to
be one of the best.

Limited research? Obviously.

 

[Fritz Wuehler]

["JunkMonkey"; Sun, 07 Mar 2004 14:55:20 GMT]

I settled on Sygate only because I thought it was a tiny bit easier to
use.

Definitely so, in my experience. Give Sygate a whirl.

WinPatrol (Scotty dog watches your startup items)

Mike Lin's got an excellent free program that runs in the background
& monitors for any program that wants to run on startup. It's called
StartupMonitor and is only a 60kb download. you can get it from
http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml .

The spiel on his site is:

StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't
even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers
itself to run at system startup. It prevents those utterly useless
tray applications from registering themselves behind your back, and
it acts as a security tool against trojans like BackOrifice or Netbus.

StartupMonitor does not require Startup Control Panel, but it
complements it nicely. When you choose not to allow a program to
register itself, the program's entry becomes disabled in Startup
Control Panel, so you can go back and enable it later if necessary.
StartupMonitor watches the Start Menu's Startup folders and the Run
entries in the registry.

StartupMonitor has been tested on Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows
ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP; unfortunately, it
does not function correctly under Windows 95 because of some
unimplemented routines in the operating system.

StartupMonitor is 100% free! However, donations to the Tip Jar are
greatly appreciated. Fifty cents, a dollar...whatever you see fit!

StartupMonitor uses the Microsoft Windows Installer engine for its
setup routine. Many applications from Microsoft and other third party
vendors now use this engine, so there is a good chance that it is
already present on your system. If, however, you are unable to open
the *.msi package contained in the zip file, you will need to install
the runtime, which is available from Microsoft for Windows 9x here
and for Windows NT 4.0 here (about 1.5MB).
Installing

Run the installer from the zip file. When the installation completes
StartupMonitor will be automatically launched.

Starting

StartupMonitor will load automatically with Windows. It runs
completely transparently until a program registers itself to run at
startup, when it will show a message box like the one above.

 

[Aaron]

I'm no security expert, mind you. And I've never used TPF, but I
don't see how ANY firewall can avoid asking you if it should allow
outgoing messages as they occur at least once so it can build your
security parameter file.

Indeed. The original poster talks about the firewall stopping the browser
for cookies, which is nonsense.

It's unclear if he is using Kerio 4 , or kerio 2.15, but kerio 4, like
sygate free has an additonal feature - application control. This actually
asks the user permission for starting any process (not just when it's
used to connect outwards). That can get irriating fast, I admit, but it's
a feature fast becoming common in personal firewalls to fight leak tests.

Perhaps that's the additonal "asking" he is seeing?




Aaron (my email is not munged!)