Mozilla Protection Disabled - Problem Not Seen Elsewhere Here - Now IE Affected, too

I have autoupdate enabled but at varous times when I check SpywareBlaster every protection in Mozilla/Firefox is disabled. Clicking on "enable all protection" fixes it. (I browse with Firefox 1.5.0.2 in Windows XP)

[There is a possibly related problem that often on startup I find that SpywareBalster's "autoupdate" feature has mysteriously disabled itself but I'm trying to deal with on problem at a time.]

I have quite a lot of Anti-Spyware programs loaded: Norton AntiVirus, X-Cleaner, Sunbelt's CounterSpy and TrendMicro's Anti-Spyware. But usually I only keep CounterSpy and Norton in an active protection mode using the others to manually scan only.

Additionally, I use ZoneAlarm Pro's firewall which also has a new anti-spyware function (which is set to scan once a week.) And I have System Mechanic and TuneUp Utilities which in the course of registry checks also check for spyware etc.

I have Spybot S&D and AdAware but it's just for sentimental reasons, I don't engage them except rarely. I don't have ie-spyad.

Over the last 2 weeks I have judiciously tried to update and run every program individually and in combination to see which of them may be affecting SpywareBlaster.

I have not been able to make any of them disable anything. The problem seems to me to have arisen when I upgraded my Norton AntiVirus to AntiVirus 2006. But that may only be coincidence because I have not been able to make Norton do anything to SpywareBlaster running manual scans.

No. I can find no consistant pattern of restart, updating or scanning that causes the problem. It just seems to appear from time to time.

Until today.

Facetime's X-Cleaner updated and I decided just before posting in this forum to run a feature I seldom use, the full system scan for malware. Just prior to this, I had checked SpywareBlaster and all protections were enabled. X-Cleaner's newly updated malware scan found 4 old instances of something in my restore files called "IRC Flood Bot." I went ahead and had X-Cleaner remove them and then retarted.

On restart I saw SpywareBlaster's notice that it had updated, loaded the latest protection and enabled everything. When I checked, however, 88 RESTRICTED SITES were unprotected for INTERNET EXPLORER. (This is the first time I've had any recent trouble with the IE protections.)

I clicked "enable all protection" and then it said 8 sites had protection disabled. I clicked it again and the number went to 7! Again... 3! Again... 2! Again... back to 7!

I manually scrolled through and put a check next to every disabled restricted sites protection and then clicked "protect against checked items." The number changed back to 2. I checked for updates and the disabled number changed back to 7. So far, though, through all of this, the Firefox protections which were my concern have stayed enabled.

Long post. Sorry. But now you know everything. Anyone have any idea what's going on?

Thanks
jamworld

 

Hi jamworld & welcome to Wilders,

Have a look at Having trouble setting the Restricted Sites protection in SpywareBlaster? Read in... for more information.
Quite an arsenal of anti-spyware you got there.

As for the auto-update problem it could be related to a combination of programs you've got running.