Two of the things that Windows XP Service Pack 2 will address are the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) and Popup Manager. The ICF has been a part of Windows XP since it came out, but it was off until we turned it on. The Popup Manager is new for Microsoft. Both of these changes can adversely affect our computers, so they are worth looking into.
The Internet Connection Firewall will be turned on after the Service Pack is applied. This can be a good thing for people that have no firewall protection, but it can cause all kinds of problems with computers that already have a firewall. Generally, we don’t want a program doing something at the same time another program is doing the same thing - this is inviting trouble. Even though I have both Ad-aware and Spybot on my computer, I don’t run them at the same time!
The ICF has some great ideas that can help protect us. When ICF is enabled, the computer will have a firewall from the time it is first turned on. The boot-time security allows the computer to perform basic networking tasks when it is first turned on, but ONLY allows the basic tasks. Once the firewall service is running, it removes the boot-time filters. This prevents possible attacks between the time the computer starts up and the time the firewall program is fully loaded. The bad news is that if we disable the ICF, this boot-time security is not enabled, either. It is an either / or situation, and that seems a bit odd to me. It would be nice to have the boot-time security even if we don’t use ICF, but Microsoft doesn’t agree.
If you are running a firewall, I recommend going back and changing the ICF settings after you apply the Service Pack. If you don’t, there can be all kinds of problems with two firewalls running at the same time. If one firewall allows certain things but the other one doesn’t, it can take a lot of time to figure out which one is blocking what you want.
The new Pop-up Manager “blocks most unwanted pop-up windows from appearing. Pop-up windows that are launched when the end user clicks a link will not be blocked.” This is a very good choice, since some pop-up blockers don’t recognize the difference between a page-generated pop-up and a click that opens a new window as a pop-up.
The pop-up manager will show a notice and play a sound when a pop-up is blocked (you can turn off the sound!) and offer some options at that point: Allow Pop-ups From This Site, Show Blocked Window, and Block Pop-up Windows. The first option adds the site to your Allow list (another new feature in Internet Explorer that will come with Service Pack 2) so that you will not have to keep clicking on Show Blocked Window on that site. The Show Blocked Window option will only show that one pop-up without allowing all pop-ups from the site. This can be helpful if there is a site with a lot of unwanted pop-ups as well as links that open new windows that you WANT to see. The third option turns the pop-up manager on and off.
I am surprised to learn that Microsoft plans to install this and leave it turned off. You have to go in and manually turn it on and set the options after the Service Pack is applied. Additionally, the pop-up manager allows pop-ups that are opened by software that is running on your computer or opened by ActiveX controls that are launched from a Web site. So if you have a spyware program that is launching ads, they will not be blocked. And an ActiveX control can be used to download things to your computer without your knowledge, so there are a couple of holes in the program right from the start. It seems to me that this will provide a false sense of security, which is never good.
That seems like enough for now! Next Monday, I will delve a little into the memory and Internet Explorer security in the Service Pack.
Credits to Mark Rider (http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=56270E:21C93BE)