norton 2003 firewall and anandtech forum (fusetalk 3.1)

[SpaceWalker]

any one else seen this?....

If my firewall is enabled, i can't see the topics in the topics page, everything shows except the name of the topics. If i disable the firewall and wait a few seconds, i hit F5 and they appear.

I never had a problem with norton firewall 2002.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

This belongs in the forum Software - Applications, Programming, and Games.

nik

 

[Jason Clark]

This isn't a forum issue, as the forums have nothing to do with firewall issues. Sounds like buggy firewall software that's filtering out HTML that it sure shouldn't as topic titles are similar to <a href="blah">this is a topic</a>.

 

[SpaceWalker]

Guys, I'm not blaming the forum, it?s obviously the firewall, I merely wanted to know if anybody else has seen the same thing and what if anything they did about it....

this is not the only forum where i've seen it, I'm having the same problem with forums running vBulletin...


I just disable the firewall to read the forums, I'm just wondering if there is anything i can change in the firewall settings that may resulve this.......

 

[bsobel]

SpaceWalker, I'll send this over to the NIS team to have looked at (I work at Symantec).

Bill

 

[Bytre]

Which firewall are you using? NIS 2003 or something else?

I can't replicate the problem with NIS 2003.

 

[SpaceWalker]

Originally posted by: Bytre
Which firewall are you using? NIS 2003 or something else?

I can't replicate the problem with NIS 2003.

yeah Norton Firewall 2003

Originally posted by: bsobel
SpaceWalker, I'll send this over to the NIS team to have looked at (I work at Symantec).

Bill

Bill, THX....

 

[SpaceWalker]

Here's what i see.....

 

[Bytre]

Sorry, I wasn't clear above. Is it the "Norton Personal Firewall" or "Norton Internet Security" variant?

Question: Do you have ad blocking turned on, and have you added custom ads to it?

Check the content blocking log and see if you get a series of blocked content when you view the forums page. Because I don't see it with a default configuration, I suspect it may be a non-default setting that is catching it.

 

[bsobel]

Bytre, turn on your PM's, wanted to check who you are (BH?) (or you can just PM me)

Bill

 

[SpaceWalker]

Content Blocked:

Date Time: 10/9/2002 5:10:53 PM
User:
Action: Blocked
Type: Ad
URL: http://www.bluesnews.com/
Data: A href="/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=37926" (Reason: "adid=")


Content Blocked:

Date Time: 10/9/2002 5:11:01 PM
User:
Action: Blocked
Type: Ad
URL: http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm?catid=39
Data: (Script) (Reason: "adid=")

Content Blocked:

Date Time: 10/9/2002 3:07:42 PM
User:
Action: Blocked
Type: Ad
URL: http://www.2cpu.com/
Data: A href="http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=ca15e398f08286a825d0fed10d4b9fba&threadid=26405" (Reason: "adid=")



This is from the Log Viewer,

I see why it's doing it, anytime it parses the html code and it comes across "ad" as in adid as in threadid, whic has nothing to do with ads, it blocks it.

now i know why it's doing it. If i turn off ad blocking it's fine, is there anyway to change the settings for ad blocking......

Norton firewall 2002 did this fine....

it's Norotn firewall 2003 which is giving me the problems.......

 

[bsobel]

Actually, I think it's triggering on adid not just ad. Anyhow, waiting for Bytre to respond...
Bill

 

[Bytre]

The "reason" is the string which is used for the ad blocking logic. In this case, it is "adid=". This string was removed from the default ad blocking list before NIS 2003 / NPF 2003 were released - so you're either using an external test, public beta, or an internal copy.

If you go into options / Norton Internet Security options / Web content tab / Ad Blocking tab, you can see all the strings which are used to determine that something is likely an ad, and thus removed by the ad blocking. There are two things you could do:

1: Select Defaults in the left pane, then find "adid=" in the right pane. Delete it. This will prevent the blocking on all sites, but not block any potential ads with "adid=", which may be fine for you.

2: Click the "add site" button on the lower left, add the site you want (forums.anandtech.com, for example), then click the "Add" button in the ad blocking tab. Add "adid=" as an html string, and select it as a Permit. This basically overrides the default block behavior for the string for that one particular site.

I'll refer this to the tech support organization to make sure they have documentation on how to do this in the knowledge base. I would expect that they do, but can't be sure.

Brendon Woirhaye
Sr. SQA Engineering Manager
Symantec Corporation

 

[SpaceWalker]

Originally posted by: Bytre
...This string was removed from the default ad blocking list before NIS 2003 / NPF 2003 were released - so you're either using an external test, public beta, or an internal copy....

yes...this is the last beta....

I decided to try it before actually buying....

I do like it better than 2002, i like the pop up blocking....

I was really happy with NIS 2002, looks like NIS 2003 will be better....

 

[Bytre]

If you bought 2002, you can get $30 off from the symantec online store. I don't know if you'll be able to find it cheaper from an online vendor or in the store though, you frequently can.