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F@H and Zonealarm

L

leconc

Member
This is a continuation of my "resetting computer every 12-24 hours post". Some guys on another AT forum found that ZA after a while is not allowing my computer to contact the internet. ZA has worked great until now. They say I can dump ZA and use win firewall, but I already use a NAT router and would like to keep ZA if possible. Any F@H users have similar ZA problems and know solution? Thanks
 
Originally posted by: leconc
This is a continuation of my "resetting computer every 12-24 hours post". Some guys on another AT forum found that ZA after a while is not allowing my computer to contact the internet. ZA has worked great until now. They say I can dump ZA and use win firewall, but I already use a NAT router and would like to keep ZA if possible. Any F@H users have similar ZA problems and know solution? Thanks
Click to expand...
I had issues with ZA cutting off LAN access after a few days, requiring a reboot, but it wasn't related at all to F@H, just to the general crappiness of ZA.

You may have better success with another firewall. Kerio makes a free one you could try.
 
I've had the ZA systray icon disappear on its own a few times. It doesn't show in Task Manager, but still blocks traffic 😕

I didn't think it was F@H related, just ZA. Someone around here recommended Tiny firewall.
 
have you tried any other edition of ZA? im not so sure the issue is F@H related with ZA. i dont understand some peoples hatred toward ZA, ive been using it for over 4 years and never had any issues at all that were bad enough to bagging it altogether. i did however have a friend that had this issue with ZA back in version 3 and he uninstalled it, used a registry cleaner to remove his old settings then reinstall it and everything was fine.
 
I've used ZA (free version) for years without any problems whatsoever. However, I recently upgraded to the newest release, and I found out it's been blocking emails. emails that used to come through, and aren't spam or viruses.

So I turn off their email protection since I have anti-virus software running, should fix the problem, right. But it's still renaming attachments and quarantening some of them.

so for the first time in years, I'm thinking of uninstalling ZA and installing Smoothwall Express on one of my older spare PCs lying around.

[edit]
Just checked out some info, and it seems that the new version of ZA Free has a bug in that mailsafe doesn't turn off even when you turn it off. Also, it doesn't actually remove any files, just renames the extensions or removes spaces from the names.
[/edit]
 
Originally posted by: leconc
This is a continuation of my "resetting computer every 12-24 hours post". Some guys on another AT forum found that ZA after a while is not allowing my computer to contact the internet. ZA has worked great until now. They say I can dump ZA and use win firewall, but I already use a NAT router and would like to keep ZA if possible. Any F@H users have similar ZA problems and know solution? Thanks
Click to expand...

Let me help slightly clairify the need for using a firewall in the first place. For the majority of people the use of a firewall is simply to keep worms or self propigating virus's from getting on your system via a hole in a program or the OS itself.

For example, last year there was the Blaster worm which once on a system, would mindlessly ping other systems looking for an open port, on an unpatched system, and then sneak in, execute itself and continue the process, looking for more systems to infect.

A firewall (or NAT box) would simply not respond to the worms request, and the worm would move on. The system could operate normally without even being patched.

My point being, if you have NAT, your already well protected from these problems, and a software firewall, while fun, is just wasting resources that could otherwise be used for Distributed Computing projects.

I could understand wanting multiple layers of protection on a system if it were at a corporation where it was storeing valuable data such as customer credit cards... But then you'd be using other methods of data security.


I'll even put it this way.. Think of your setup as a house, right now you have a closed door with someone watching it 24/7 (NAT) and another closed door with someone watching it 24/7, behind it (ZA) and all your trying to keep out is a mouse looking for a warm room to sleep in.
 
Originally posted by: DaZ
I'll even put it this way.. Think of your setup as a house, right now you have a closed door with someone watching it 24/7 (NAT) and another closed door with someone watching it 24/7, behind it (ZA) and all your trying to keep out is a mouse looking for a warm room to sleep in.
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While I wouldn't necessarily agree that a personal firewall is totally useless, I do think that ZoneAlarm, at the previous version that I used, leaves much to be desired. For no reason at all, even though my LAN adapter was in the "local zone" my LAN access would be cut off after a day or so, and no amount of fiddling with ZA (even "shutting" it down) would fix the problem. Uninstalling it, however, did fix the problem.
 
Originally posted by: DaZ
and all your trying to keep out is a mouse looking for a warm room to sleep in.
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I've got a cat that is a great mouser, and two dogs, one of which is as good as the cat. That mouse still finds a way in, not thru the door though 🙂 (old country house)
 
One of the things I liked about ZA that not all of the other software firewalls had was that it would also stop and OUTGOING viruses. So heaven forbid my wife or daughter opened up an email attachment with a nasty in it, it wouldn't infect the other PCs on the network.

As for me, I've seen stuff hit my ZA even though I'm running NAT. And routers can get hacked as well. ZA offered another layor of protection, and I found the resources it used negligble.
 
Originally posted by: RaySun2Be
And routers can get hacked as well. ZA offered another layor of protection, and I found the resources it used negligble.
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Thats most definatly true, but 'hackers' arent going to waste time breaking through NAT to get onto someones home system unless they KNOW there is something of value there. And not many home systems have stuff thats worth while.. Also, if they can get through a router/NAT, they can get through ZA, it will just take a little longer..

Im all for at least one firewall, but as I've said, two is really overkill for most home users.

I've been using XP's firewall since September 2001, on two systems connected to the net 24/7 and havent had any problems.

As for resource usage, sure its small, but it can add up. I'm a little anal about that so whatever! 😀
However small it might be, such as the case of SETI for example, it may only take the client 3-4 minutes more to complete a WU because of a program running, but that 3-4 minutes on several systems over years can cost a lot of work, just for a little un-needed paranoia..

I tried ZA back when a new version came out last spring, and while downloading a file at 250k/sec, one of ZA's services was using something like 20% CPU time which is rediculous.

So heaven forbid my wife or daughter opened up an email attachment with a nasty in it, it wouldn't infect the other PCs on the network.
Click to expand...
Of course another good point. I guess Im perhaps over-estimating the smarts of users of this forum and their ability to prevent infecting themselves..
 
Of course another good point. I guess Im perhaps over-estimating the smarts of users of this forum and their ability to prevent infecting themselves..
Click to expand...

It's not me or the users of this forum I'm worried about. It's family members that aren't very PC literate (despite my best efforts) that may accidently infect the PC.

And your right, the hard core hackers that have the expertise to crack routers and firewalls aren't going to spend their time breaking into a reasonably protected home network. They concentrate on bigger fish.

Script kiddies will look for the easy, unprotected targets. Sort of like burgulars. A true professional can break into just about any home. But why bother with one that's well protected (and may not yield much results) when there are so many easy quicker or higher yielding targets out there..
 
I use Sygate personal firewall. I have it running with folding at home and I haven't had any problems yet. I really enjoy using sygate.
 
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