Norton Firewall 2003 and opera browser

A tale of woe!, info for those with NIS and thinking about Opera browser. Pc's are great when they work but when they go wrong ........................
My pC has XP SP1 & 512MB ram/80GB HD. NIS 2003 and Avast home.
As stated above I DID have NIS 2003 installed on my PC, which I did like. My browser was always IE6 fully patched, reinforced with Spyware blaster & the Immunisation feature in Spybot. I decided to try another browser and opted for Opera. After installation it ran beautifully , much quicker than IE6 and obviously more secure and I like it. The problems started when I tried to go to a secure https site, and I kept getting error messages. Having tried various secure sites and got the same messages it was obviously a fault on my pC. I then tried the same secure sites [which were ok prior to Opera] with my IE6 browser and got the same errors. So Somehow on Opera installation things had gone awfully wrong. I thought my internet settings were compromised, so I uninstalled Opera and did a system restore to find everything was still just the same.... ie. couldnt access secure sites.
So after 9 hours on the PC , it became apparent it was Norton firewall that was at fault,-- there must have been some conflict between it and Opera browser on my PC, and a problem which i couldnt fix so NIS was uninstalled.
I installed Kerio 4 firewall & set it up- rules based with a final block rule, and everything was back to normal !! So I saved a restore point and reinstalled Opera--now I can access secure sites with Opera and IE6--all problems solved- and so far so good.
One thing puzzles me though, in both NIS and Kerio-- neither asked me for internet access for IE6 or Opera applications ??-- but they do have access. SO I started logging the Avast webscanner [which had asked for internet permission in NIS and Kerio], and that logged all net activity, so Am I right in thinking all internet access is somehow routed through the Avast web scanner, hence neither IE6 or Opera has prompted reaction from the firewall? Anybody any ideas? I suppose I could disable Avast's webscanner and see if that initiates a response.

 

Check your internet explorer >tools>internet options>connections>lan settings>advanced..you will probably see avasts portsettings in there ,as it acts as a transparent web proxy.
ellison

 

Thanks Ellison, I checked what you said but there were no lan settings as you suggested-- just "automatically detect settings". However, I think you have hit the nail on the head about Avast being the transparent web proxy. I think I also answered my own question. In kerio I denied net access for Avasts webscanner and afterwards neither IE6 or Opera could access the internet. So that must be why IE6 and Opera dont initiate a response in my firewall-just Avasts webscanner.
Interesting to know.

 

Thers some info here.Maybe it will be of help to you.
http://www.avast.com/eng/webshield_issues.html
ellison

 

Thanks Ellison

 

I have it sussed now. In Kerio 4 when you ask for trusted applications [starting other applications] to alert the user, and when IE6 and Opera are started the firewall asks for outgoing permission for both on port 12080,-- that is Avasts webscanning port for the transparent proxy.
Likewise with the mailscanning proxy on port 12110 and outlook express, mailwasher etc.