Zone alarm

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Now here comes the question.

When I turned on my computer for the first time I imediately installed Zone Alarm. There werent actually many programs to be blocked so I let them all acess the internet. Times evolve and now I got billions of programs willing to acess the net. But not only the ordinary games and media players, but also MICROSOFT related items. If I turn them off (in other words I let zone alarm block them) the internet doesnt work anymore. Why did it do it before.

Spooler sub system App?

Common client CCP App?

Generic Host process for win32?

And why the hell Windows Service pAck?

And many many more. Why do I need them to serve the net?

Please advise what is the best way to keep your internet working and fast. I got the impression it is getting slower because too many programs are using my cable!

And by the way. Dont let anything from you windows/prefetch folder access the net!

or just write a word pad document with: "del c:\windows\prefetch\*.* /q" and save it as whatever.bat.

Now when you click it it will automatically delete all items within!

[mr burns 131]

why use zone alarm anyway ? i´ve heard & read it´s useless (unless you have the paid pro version)

i´d suggest a mc-afee or agnitum firewall (nortons FW´s are tooo slow on boot).

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

why use zone alarm anyway ? i´ve heard & read it´s useless (unless you have the paid pro version)

i´d suggest a mc-afee or agnitum firewall (nortons FW´s are tooo slow on boot).

Useless: I have McAffee and you wouldnt believe that Zone-alarm free version is blocking a great deal of all the programs accessing the net. The free version is doing a great job. The extra version lets you find out WHO tried to acess you, but that is about all!

[theavonlady 2]

ZA is not useless. BTW, an update came out about 2 days ago.

For info on specific Windows programs, I believe you can click on a HELP button when you're prompted to allow/disallow them. This usually takes you to a specific ZA page that explains what the program does and recommended responses.

[der bastler 0]

Problem of all personal firewalls: They are user space processes, they work ontop of the network socket. Recently there was a demonstration how to "close" (post close message) a firewall using a trojan horse.

It's an illusion of security, but a personal firewall can be usefull to track down network traffic. Then you can close the open ports by deactivating the talking/listening software.

Remember, no open ports = safety. But that's the mess with Windows: you can't exactly control what your system does...

[mr burns 131]

Then you can close the open ports by deactivating the talking/listening software.

that´s what i do normally.

but be sure to keep port 21 open !

i disqualified myself from all ftp function because i set a rule not to allow any traffic there and now i don´t know how to get rid of the rule

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Quote[/b] ]Remember, no open ports = safety

thanks for that, but how too?

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]Remember, no open ports = safety

thanks for that, but how too?

[mr burns 131]

Quote[/b] ]Remember, no open ports = safety

thanks for that, but how too?

i never found out how to close determined ports with ZA.

don´t even think it´s possible.

plz someone prove me wrong with this so i may give ZA another try...the unbreakable rulz on my FW suxx0r real bad  

[bonko the sane 2]

Ive always used zone alarm and im quite happy with it, i got my winXP firewall disabled (would u trust microsoft? i dont) , i installed it on learning mode,when programs try to access the net the pc prompts me to make a decision, if its a normal process i memorize it as good to go, some Windows processes i leave on standby (i.e:windows update , 'cos i have automatic updates disabled) if its a bloody unwanted process i block it, trace it back to where it is and delete the bugger, then remove it from the zonealarm list...needless to say i have to do this regularly, keep windows update, anti-virus and firewall up to date, but i have never had a virus in my pc...so the bottom line for me is to have only programs u use regularly online with automatic access, all others that u use ocasionaly...leave them on prompt mode.

BTW Mr.Albert Schweizer : Txs for that .bat file comes in quite handy

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]Remember, no open ports = safety

thanks for that, but how too?

i never found out how to close determined ports with ZA.

don´t even think it´s possible.

plz someone prove me wrong with this so i may give ZA another try...the unbreakable rulz on my FW suxx0r real bad  

I have ZA - not ZA Pro. Found this help text but I think it only applies to ZA Pro, as I have no CUSTOM buttons showing, as described:

Quote[/b] ]Adding custom ports

You can allow communication through additional ports at High security, or block additional ports at Medium security by specifying individual port numbers or port ranges.

To specify additional ports:

Select Firewall|Main.

In either the Trusted Zone or Internet Zone area, click Custom.

The Custom Firewall settings dialog appears.

Scroll to the security level (High or Medium) to which you want to add ports.

Select the desired port type: incoming UDP, outgoing UDP, incoming TCP, or outgoing TCP.

Type the port or port ranges you want to allow or block in the Ports field, separated by commas. For example, 139, 200-300

Click Apply, then click OK.

[theavonlady 2]

Ive always used zone alarm and im quite happy with it, i got my winXP firewall disabled (would u trust microsoft? i dont)

If I'm not mistaken, PC Mag had a recent column on XP Service Pack 2. I believe they said that Windows Firewall will be forced on after the SP's install. Heads up, everyone!

[theavonlady 2]

And by the way. Dont let anything from you windows/prefetch folder access the net!

I don't have any such folder.

Maybe someone on the Net took it!

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

If you dont have a prefetch folder then this means you are working with a bad copy of Microsoft Windows in combination with a black-market copy of OFP.

[theavonlady 2]

If you dont have a prefetch folder then this means you are working with a bad copy of Microsoft Windows in combination with a black-market copy of OFP.  

You know, I've noticed that when I click Windows' TURN OF THE COMPUTER menu option, FADE kicks in.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

AFAIK you could run ZA in conjunction with the XP firewall. This should work if everything is configured correctly.

And the whole point with this would be that you can close/open ports in the XP firewall.

Im not 100% sure though.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I am not so much scared about outgoing information but about internet speed. I have the impression that too many programs with internet-entitlement can slow down net performance. Maybe I am wrong about that!

[bonko the sane 2]

AFAIK you could run ZA in conjunction with the XP firewall. This should work if everything is configured correctly.

And the whole point with this would be that you can close/open ports in the XP firewall.

Im not 100% sure though.  

oh, XP firewall and ZoneAlarm work fine together, without any special configuration, its just that i NEED all the available RAM i can get my hands on to run OFP .

So much so that my XP is basically a more modern win98, most of the useless XP features is disabled .

I also heard that winXP firewall in Service Pack 2 will be enforced to all users, but i also heard that it will be highly configurable...so not all is lost...

[theavonlady 2]

I am not so much scared about outgoing information but about internet speed. I have the impression that too many programs with internet-entitlement can slow down net performance. Maybe I am wrong about that!

I would assume that the added code path is so small that this would be irrelevant.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

automated update download of virusprograms, Microsoft updates and and and....

[bonko the sane 2]

why dont u set all those ungodly automated features to manual? like that u wont have to bother if its eating away the bandwidth or not, just do a manual update +\- once a week and thats it.

[Schirmer 0]

And by the way. Dont let anything from you windows/prefetch folder access the net!

Why not?

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Quote[/b] ]"Windows XP monitors the files that are used when the computer starts and when you start applications. By monitoring these files, Windows XP can Prefetch them. Prefetching data is the process whereby data that is expected to be requested is read ahead into the cache. Prefetching boot files and applications decreases the time needed to start Windows XP and start applications."

This information is logged and stored on your hard drive taking up space and requiring a process to be kept running monitoring which applications are being run. This has a performance impact on your PC. Disabling the Prefetch function or at least only enabling it for the Boot Files will allow you to free up some system resources and preserve some disk space.

Now the question is, why do these prefetch files try to send information over the internet (which is not the purpose of prefetching). And addware doesnt check the prefetch files, why? In other word prefetch knows to 100% all the programms installed on your computer and all the install information they contain.

If you want to know more full details about prefetch folder

[theavonlady 2]

If you want to know more full details about prefetch folder

I'm not complaining but my Registry enablePrefetch setting is 3 and I have no such \windows\prefetch directory and I never did naything manually before to remove it.

[toadeater 0]

Here's a pretty good free security scan:

Check Your Security