ZoneAlarm

[ThunderVamp9]

Well, after reading up on everyone's opinion on which was better, I opted for ZoneAlarm, especially after reading Steve Gibson's article. I have a few problems with it, however.

1. When ZoneAlarm is running, I can't access my CD drives. I pop a CD in, and try to explore it, and it just keeps asking me to place a CD in the drive.

2. The system no longer shuts down. It hangs at the Saving Your Settings screen.

What is the best way to configure ZoneAlarm?

For reference, I'm running Win2K SP2, with 512MB RAM. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[WesFlash]

Go to security and lower the local security to medium. I personally have never had that problem with zonealarm, but it is worth a sho. I currently run a athlon 1GHz with Win2K pro, 256 mb of ram and have only had problems connecting to other computers at my house with ZA before I set up the settings for the other computers in ZA. Hope it helps.

[Higg]

That's weird as mainly point 1 (the CD) has nothing to do with networking...
What is the behaviour now when you shut down zonealarm before doing such actions? (right-click in systray)

[ThunderVamp9]

Figures. I shut down ZA and everything started working right. So, I restarted ZA, and everything is continuing to work properly. Not sure what it was.

I still have the problem of W2K hanging at the Saving Your Settings screen, but if I shut down ZA before shutting down the system, it doesn't happen. Previously, the system would crash when I shut down ZA, but now it's not. Go figure.

I'm using this on my home network, and I'm pretty much a networking newbie. I play games with my son a lot, and have had a little difficulty connecting to each other in games since installing ZA. I want to allow incoming and outgoing UDP and TCP ports in the local zone, but don't know which ports to allow. Can anyone help me with this?

[MacGyver]

If you're wanting to configure individual ports in your firewall, the free version of ZoneAlarm will NOT allow you to do this. However, the $40 commercial version of ZoneAlarm Pro will.

I recommend Tiny Personal Firewall instead. It's totally free, not quite as easy to use as ZoneAlarm, but that's because it's way more flexible and configurable.

I had the same problem as you, wanting to configure individual ports for games. So I dumped ZoneAlarm and tried Tiny. I am still using it today and it never blocks anything that it's not supposed to.

[ShadowDragon]

Originally posted by MacGyver:
<STRONG>If you're wanting to configure individual ports in your firewall, the free version of ZoneAlarm will NOT allow you to do this. However, the $40 commercial version of ZoneAlarm Pro will.

<Me talking>

Quite true. Pro is very nice. Though the free verison is as well. I've NEVER had a problem with either verison. nt 4.0, 9x ME (shudder). So I would assume its a 2K thing. Soon as I get some free time I'll make sure to let you know.

<Me Done>

I recommend Tiny Personal Firewall instead.

<me again>
Please load up tiny. then goto www.zonealarm.com and have him port scan you. I'd love to see how many holes that program really has (or has not. Maybe they fixed them all)

<done again>

It's totally free, not quite as easy to use as ZoneAlarm, but that's because it's way more flexible and configurable.

I had the same problem as you, wanting to configure individual ports for games. So I dumped ZoneAlarm and tried Tiny. I am still using it today and it never blocks anything that it's not supposed to.</STRONG>

I've been doing this for a while now and I know IT people who use ZA because its the best on the market AND free for the end user.

[Fubarian]

yea, I am one of those IT people, and the 3 guys above me (systems analysis, Chief of IT and network admin) all use zonealarm, and I do too.

I guess it goes back to what some people say that windows never works....it does EXACTLY what you tell it to do. <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">

[ThunderVamp9]

I *am* using ZA Pro. And so far it does exactly what I want, I just don't know which ports to allow access to in the Local Zone. Thanks!

[Platypus]

A columnist in this month's edition, out today, of an Australian computer magazine, says ZA Pro is broken for Win 2K. He refers to his SP1 configured machines, but I guess same may apply to SP2. He says doesn't affect everybody, Zone Labs are aware of it, and advise regularly hit Check for Updates, but link was broken as he was writing the article. He advised use the free V2.1.44 until problem solved, as it seems to have no Win 2K problems.

[corelogik]

I run ZA V2.1.44 under win2k with a 1Ghz AMD and 512MB ram,. ive NEVER had a single problem with it, works fine for me even with sp02.

[Darren Wilson]

I am using ver 2.6.88 with Win2K & SP2 and have had no problems at all with it. Everything still works as it should.