The “original” version of Kerio, version 2.15, which provided lots of user control, had no bug that I know of and it was a widely used product by many security and network people, which is how I came to it. So although your question is way beyond my limited level of expertise, I’m sure that if there had been a design flaw like this it would have been widely talked about in the security forums that recommended Kerio (Broadband Reports, Wilder’s Security).
What I would also think, in any case, was that if such a design flaw DID exist, why would it exhibit itself for the first time six month’s later, impede the connection for two days, and then have things return back to normal? That just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me, wihch is why I thought of an Avast Web Scanner problem, an incompatabilty with a recent MS update or something malicious.
What I can think of Kerio 2, it was very reliable. It hasn’t been updated for quite a long time, though. On blue2’s system, programs which are changed recently are only Firefox and MS updates. Then again, when I checked out one of our PCs (Windows XP SP3) on which Avast! and Firefox are installed with CurrPorts, it doesn’t cause such problem…all the connections are within the range of local port 1024-4999. Then again, I wonder if it is something malicious since it seems to be limited to local ports… As you wrote, it is most likely incompatibility or something like that. If so, unfortunately, it can be hard to reproduce it on a system of someone else.
@blue2 Although personally I don’t think it is related with malware, just in case, are you willing to try HijackThis check on your computer? People here would help you.
Thanks, Francois. et je te remercie de nouveau pour ton conseil. When I open up the Kerio status window in fact I DO see connections to port 1080 when viewing web pages. That port is active and not impeding connections. So I’d have to think it was something else. If it were my computer, I’d have had an easier tiime diagnosing it. Now I just have to wait and see if it happens again.