[AccessD] OT: Firewall

chizotz at mchsi.com chizotz at mchsi.com
Mon Oct 10 14:33:17 CDT 2005


I feel a need to jump in here with a comment regarding Zone Alarm.

Several months ago, after spending the money to buy two Zone Alarm Pro 
licenses (one for me, one for my wife's machine), I went to install an upgrade 
to ZAP and it informed me that I would have to uninstall Trend Micro Anti-
Virus first. Bear in mind that I had also paid for two licenses to Trend Micro.

I contacted Zone Labs and was told -- literally -- that it wasn't their 
problem and I should complain to Trend Micro about it.

I have a real problem with any company releasing software to paying customers 
knowing that it is incompatible with certain other software the user has also 
paid for and is possibly running and not providing some kind of option or work-
around to get past the problem. I have an even bigger problem with being 
instructed to uninstall some other software. And my biggest problem of all is 
being told it isn't their problem and to not bother them, go bother the other 
company. In my very strong opinion, the problem was with Zone Alarm and their 
response was the absolute height of arrogance, assuming they had the right to 
set the rules about what would be done and attempting to enlist their users to 
bully another company into compliance.

After using Zone Alarm for years, since it first came out, I immediately 
ditched it after that fiasco. And you know what? I haven't missed it at all.

To be fair, I also ditched Trend Micro not long after that because of horrible 
customer service. Their AV kept shutting itself off and refuse to restart, and 
every time it happened their only response was, after the same multi-message 
run-around each time, was to send me a link to a patch that would fix it 
temporarily. After 6 months of that nonsense I finally said enough was enough 
and tossed them out too.

I'm behind a hardware firewall (router) and FWIW I now have Avast AV and the 
Windows XP firewall and have (knock on wood) had no problems.

Ron





> Rocky,
> 
> You could say that monitoring outbound comms is your last wall of defense.
> It should never happen, and won't if your AV program protects you perfectly.
> If a virus does slip by and starts trying to phone home, the software
> firewall will prevent the outbound comms and notify you that a program is
> attempting to talk to the internet.
> 
> This level is not about preventing infection, but about discovering that you
> are infected.  Imagine that somehow something slipped past, and was watching
> you log in to everything you log into these days.  As it tries to ship that
> info out to the perps, the software firewall prevents the transmission,
> saving your bacon, as well as notifying you that the program is trying to
> transmit.
> 
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com 
> 
> Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause:
> http://folding.stanford.edu/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin -
> Beach Access Software
> Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 9:08 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Firewall
> 
> 
> What is the risk with outbound comms?  Can you have a problem even though 
> you're behind the router firewall? And if so, how?
> 
> Rocky
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Colby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
> To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'" 
> <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 4:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Firewall
> 
> 
> >I am behind a router.  Software firewalls are great for checking up on  
> >OUTBOUND comms.
> >
> > John W. Colby
> > www.ColbyConsulting.com
> >
> > Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: 
> > http://folding.stanford.edu/
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky 
> > Smolin - Beach Access Software
> > Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 12:27 AM
> > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> > Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Firewall
> >
> >
> > Are you behind a router firewall?  Is that sufficient?
> >
> > Rocky
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "John Colby" <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
> > To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'"
> > <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> > Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 3:01 PM
> > Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Firewall
> >
> >
> >>I use Sygate personal on all of my machines.  Works fine, lasts a long 
> >>time,  with proper maintenance.
> >>
> >> John W. Colby
> >> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> >>
> >> Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: 
> >> http://folding.stanford.edu/
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> >> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky 
> >> Smolin - Beach Access Software
> >> Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 11:07 AM
> >> To: AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> >> Subject: [AccessD] OT: Firewall
> >>
> >>
> >> I\'m having a huge problem getting Zone Alarm on one of our computers 
> >> I've used it for years with no problem, upgraded this one box from 
> >> Version 3 to
> >> the latest, it blocks internet access and give a page full of 
> >> instructions
> >> on how to solve the problem - none of which work.
> >>
> >> Uninstalled, reinstalled,  cleaned registry per their instructions, 
> >> renamed the internet log, blah, blah.
> >>
> >> At the moment the machine is behind the router firewall (like all of
> >> them) so I don't know if I should be too concerned but I've always 
> >> run a firewall on each machine in addition to the hardware firewall 
> >> in the Linksys.
> >>
> >> I'm not wedded to Zone Alarm and I'm looking at Sygate's product ( 
> >> another free one : http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm) . 
> >> Anyone know about this?  Any other recommendations for a personal 
> >> firewall?
> >>
> >> Thanks and regards,
> >>
> >> Rocky
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> >>
> >>
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> >
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