need help with firewalls (zone alarm 6.5)

right now i have avira antivir beta with firewall installed. the firewall that comes with avira is causing problems running pingplotter and traceroute, when i had Kaspersky (KIS 6.0) installed i didnt have any problems with these programs, when i had zone alarm 6.5 installed they also worked, i want to continue to try the avira antivir but im not really comfortable with their firewall at the moment, so i am thinking about disabling or removing the firewall if possible and installing zonealarm 6.5. My problem is this i know there was a conflict with zonealarm and something else on my system so im not sure if i can even do it but i was also reading in these forums that zonealarm really isnt a good product for whatever reason, can somebody please tell me if zone alarm is back to being good or should i just go back to kis 6.0 and forget about the beta trial

 

Check this thread out:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,13950229

Personally I never liked that FW because it conflicts with my system.

All depends of your system. Try it if it works keep it, if it doesn't look elsewhere.

Good luck

 

Everyone's PC is different because of the programs and files and OS settings for each machine. Some people find no problems with a particular program while others can't even install the same program. ZA 6.5 is supposed to be the most current version of that program and some people had issues with it while others have not. I personally have never had an issue with the program since I first installed it back in 2000. I could not use any version past 6.1.744 because of my old Windows 98 Operating system. But if it worked previously for you, I don't see why it should now create a problem. I heard about the Antivir firewall being in development. Beta programs tend to be unpredictable on computer systems because they have not been tested extensively. I guess the best advice that I can offer is to see which programs run without any BSOD or slowdowns and see if the program has passed most leaktests.

 

Have a look at Outpost Pro. V4 is about to be released and it is an excellent peice of kit.

 

My ZA Pro 6.5.737.000 works well with KAV 6.0.0.303e. If you are using ZA pro with the privacy options, you will just need to enable privacy for Kaspersky. Thats because Kaspersky acts as a proxy to scan your webpages, hence data no longer flows directly from the internet. ZA's default privacy settings only takes cares of data that flows directly from the net.

 

Yeah zonealarm has been known to cause a few problems from time to time but overall its an excellent piece of software. I currently have ZA antivirus installed on my laptop and its running fine although i did originally have a few problems when i installed it.

 

K:

Do you have ZA pro? or is it the so called suite with AV and AT? Do you have a licenced product that would allow you to get ZA support? If not get ZA Pro NOT the suite. You can do that on a 15 day/30 day trial. It is NOT a beta version but a trial run in the production version.

I use ZA Pro strictly for the 2 way firewall control at the Program and web site level. It is very good at that work.

However, in my opinion I wouldn't rely on it's AV and AT as your core tools for that. There are much better AV's and AT's. This forum is loaded with good advice and many choices.

I use BD 9 for AV and SS 5 for the spyware. All these work well together if you don't overlap their IE shields and email scanning shields.

You have a conflict on your PC.

If you can I would unhook from the internet do a restore point then remove/uninstall all your secuity software, (keeping ALL your install software for the ones you want on your desk top)

Run all your disk and cache cleanup programs, and defrag your system.

Still unhooked fron the Internet install ZA first and carefully follow all their advice on initial setup configuration choices. Use smartdefense and their defaults for every program it detects on your system.
Go back on line and update ZA, disconnect again. (as you don't have AV and ASW installed, this is when you get malware)

Install 1 Antivirus program unless Unless you are using ZA AV, install 1 AV program of your choice. Go online and update it. Disconnect again. Run scan.

Unless you are using ZA ASW , install 1 ASW program of your choice. Go online and update it. Disconnect again run the scan.

Take a restore point.

Go back on line and 1 by 1 run all your internet programs, browsers answering the messages from ZA carefully when it asks you if it is okay for these to do this or that. If you don't know the program wanting access deny it!

After all this carefull and boring work you should go back to normal life.

Good luck.

 

good advise!

I have to say ive been using zone alarm pro 6.5 build for a number of years and im quite used to the set up now. I found the newer versions a bit buggy, so swapped back to an earlier build. Primarily i use it as a stand alone firewall, and use a combo av system....bit sneaky! ........im using avira classic and its excellent process guard, and also have avg installed with the resident shield turned OFF!, so that my pop3 email is covered, as the avira classic doesnt cover pop3 support. The SSM (free)hips I also run doesnt seem to have a problem with this combo, and system resourses are well within limits.

Im often online for 10-12 hours per day, and have yet to find any significant conflicts with this combonation...and the good thing about it is that its FREE!.

As a combo option it is worth having a look at. The reason that i chose that combo was that all of the applications are configurable, so i dont run processes that conflict with the other progs im using. Stick to the core elements of what each does best.

AVG free--- good pop3 support, and nice back up on demand alternate scan.

Avira classic--- excellent process guard, and main virus scan. Limited email support with the classic though, however its free, and with the avg you dont need it.

Zone Alarm pro 6.5.722.000.....great early build, stable, and doesnt conflict with the av or hips. Offers some email support, but not necessary, although i havent noticed any conflict with either AVG or Avira.

SSM..... Fantastic if a little complex...it seems to be as complex as you want it to be, and since the others dont offer onboard hips, the rule set doesnt conflict, and can be easily configured to allow the right mix.

If im going to dodgy sites, i use sandboxie.

Ive tried spyware terminator with its onboard hips, and extra clam av gaurd, but im afraid i had numerous conflict problems with zone alarm, and the other two av progs. In the end i decided to divide up the tasks amongst a few progs and stick to the ones that they were specialties at, turning off supurfluous add-ons. This seems to have done the trick nicely.

I should also mention that i dont use outlook or IE, prefering the zilla combo of firefox, with all of its excellent configurable packages, and thunderbird as the pop3 mail client. These two give me greater resourse access, im used to them, and they are security conscious without being INVASIVE data mining programms...i have had no problems with conflicts using these combo's. I should also menion that i dont use my machine for gaming much, so if your a pure gamer you might want to rethink the config, but i still believe that it would be useful for a low/no budget user to configure the way i have.

Get yourself CCleaner also!, and clean up the system regularly, and 'clean ram' will trim your ram up nicely for the gaming experience whilest not taxing your system resourses, both free/DONATION ware.

and use spywareblaster, ad-aware, spy-bot search and destroy,and ewido all as on demand scanners. The root kit scanner is a toss up between sophos and f-secures blacklight, but if your interested in blacklight its a time limited offer until oct, so get used to the sophos!

all this for donations only!.....god bless those companies for caring!, and if you are a stuggling artist, then this could be your magic security combo!....or you could always duel boot with UbantU linux, and surf free from the fear of being attacked at all! LOL