Just two days ago I updated my ZA free to version 7.0.337.000. When the Avast pop-up came I clicked no. But my browsers became rather slow, and to-day I could not load any browser, nor in Flock and for IE7.0 I got a Visual C++ Runtime Library error, thereit stated for iexplore: this application has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way. Please contact the application support team.
I had to set ZA to Medium to be able to start the browser again. What is causing this behaviour. What did ZA change more besides the Icon? Why cannot I use ZA main setting set at HIGH only MEDIUM. Anyone?
I don’t know what to tell you Polonus, except to maybe look for an alternative to ZA. Personally, as I’ve mentioned previously, I gave up on them, and reinstalled an older version that doesn’t give me any problems.
We’ve had a couple of threads discussing various problems they’ve been having and after reading your post, I checked into their forum to see what’s been happening.
A principle of statistical sampling is to look at the topic of each thread. Without becoming too complicated here - in a nutshell - if many topics are similar, than there are few problems. But if there are many diverse topics, think of them as the tips of icebergs. Many users will be experiencing similar problems, but don’t post on the forums. The total number of icebergs will hint as to the overall health of the product(s).
A quick look through their forums confirms, at least to me, that ZA is still a mess.
Though I’m sure someone will come along with a fix for you, would there be an alternative that would work for you?
I’ve changed over to FREE PC Tools Firewall Plus and haven’t had a complaint yet.
It’s even Vista compatible even though I’ve dropped Vista and gone back to XP.
Hi Bob thats intriguing as I can not get PCTools firewall to work on my Vista system, it is so good I can’t even get on the net. So I am now surfing with windows firewall alone (living dangerously) But IE with Vista runs on restricted rights so incoming is no problem, and I know I am clean so I am not too concerned about outgoing (yet)
After I have changed the settings of ZA to medium, I took every test there was, and all showed I surfed completely stealth: ports invisible to the outside world. My browser speed is also down to normal. Do you think this was due to ZA blocking avast on local host 12080? Because now I can see it, at the previous time I only had localhost listening … (checked it with netstat and neomonitor!) and no outside connections were established, all outward traffic blocked all the time (red colour).
no problem at all with pctools firewall plus on my laptop(xp home2)and my quad(vista ultimate)no connections problems…no problems AT ALL…it works GREAT!!! ;D :o
Bob, can you compare it with Comodo?
Or other users of Comodo in the past, will it worth moving to PcTools?
I think Justin won’t like of this ‘movement’… eh eh…
as i stated in my post above-i like the pctools firewall plus-comodo would blocked me from the internet-za free had that other crap installed with it-and all least firewall plus works on vista-and that review you posted BJ_GeOrgE is a couple of months old and firewall plus has improved 1000%-when it first came out it wouldn’t even let me connect to the internet-i thought it was garbage then and now i won’t use anything else at the present time :o 8)
and it passed shields up and the leak test on both of my computers 8)
This showed 2 bad marks for version 1 which I also didn’t like.
The latest version is great and as already mentioned by Dan, passes all the tests.
Bob, can you compare it with Comodo?
Or other users of Comodo in the past, will it worth moving to PcTools?
I think Justin won't like of this 'movement'... eh eh...
Comodo for me was a dragon and I could never get it to work properly for me. (Blocked MySharedFiles)
Never had that problem with PCTools Plus Firewall. Simply allowed the port and no more problems.
I changed to PCTools when I needed a Vista compatible firewall.
Now that I’m back to running XP, I’ve changed over from ZA because PCTools uses less system resources and is just as easy to use.
If what you’re using works for you, passes the tests and, your comfortable with it, Keep It.
@ OrangeCrate
Ports that are closed may still be detected and as such subjected to other measures (not sure what) or they may come under more scrutiny. So stealthed is better as to all intents and purposes they don’t exist.
David, I don’t think it works like that. Closed is closed, whether you can detect them or not.
“By default, Ubuntu ships with no open ports on public interfaces. In other words, a ‘port scan’ would show all closed ports, nothing open. As a result, putting up a firewall would provide no more security than not putting one up. Remember that open ports provide services that hackers can connect to, and only if they can connect to these services can they be potentially abused and exploited.”
I would be infinitely more concerned about using a tacked on firewall on Windows, to stealth the open ports, and someone figuring out how to crack that, than if all the ports are closed by default. To me, using a firewall on Windows is like stringing camouflage netting, hoping no one will see what’s under it.
[quote author=bob3160 link=topic=27483.msg223878#msg223878 date=1175471550]
Comodo for me was a dragon and I could never get it to work properly for me. (Blocked MySharedFiles)
Never had that problem with PCTools Plus Firewall. Simply allowed the port and no more problems.
I changed to PCTools when I needed a Vista compatible firewall.
Now that I’m back to running XP, I’ve changed over from ZA because PCTools uses less system resources and is just as easy to use.
If what you’re using works for you, passes the tests and, your comfortable with it, Keep It.
pc tools firewall uses less ram than comodo or more???
i’m confortable with pctools firewall plus…if it works for me-it works for me and it does just that and great on two computers-so i will keep on using it :o
have a good one avast world
it passed shields up here as mentioned before
It isn’t me that needs to be happy ;D it is your system.
Yes a closed port is closed but it can still indicate the presence of a computer on that IP, which could bring it in for further attention to try and circumvent security. Ports that are stealthed don’t attract that attention as why waste effort on something that doesn’t appear to have anything on that IP.
