Replies

It isn’t just Zone Alarm which delays the opening of the Windows Desktop (delays the startup of Explorer.exe, among other things). Avast has a boot-time rootkit scan which runs whenever you log into any account, every time. Comodo is another firewall with proactive defenses which delays other programs’ startups, sometimes causing drivers to fail to load (and resulting in a Blue Screen or reboot).

I do NOT recommend using the Windows XP firewall without third party additions. Vista and Windows 7 have perfectly good firewalls, but Windows XP’s firewall is infamous for its lack of outbound protections — the very kind of protections you need to detect and clobber today’s bots and Trojan Horse infections. Sometimes you have to just live with a certain amount of inconvenience for the sake of added protections. And Avast doesn’t really need to do its boot-time scans if you are doing weekly Deep Scans for rootkits anyway. So turn off the feature. Not so easy in Zone Alarm, which does not provide the user with such fine-tuning controls.

And do NOT apply Startup Delays to any firewall! You would be defeating the reason you have a firewall, by allowing some applications to launch and contact the Internet before they can be vetted by the firewall’s defenses.

-- rc primak

It isn’t just Zone Alarm which delays the opening of the Windows Desktop (delays the startup of Explorer.exe, among other things). Avast has a boot-time rootkit scan which runs whenever you log into any account, every time. Comodo is another firewall with proactive defenses which delays other programs’ startups, sometimes causing drivers to fail to load (and resulting in a Blue Screen or reboot).

I do NOT recommend using the Windows XP firewall without third party additions. Vista and Windows 7 have perfectly good firewalls, but Windows XP’s firewall is infamous for its lack of outbound protections — the very kind of protections you need to detect and clobber today’s bots and Trojan Horse infections. Sometimes you have to just live with a certain amount of inconvenience for the sake of added protections. And Avast doesn’t really need to do its boot-time scans if you are doing weekly Deep Scans for rootkits anyway. So turn off the feature. Not so easy in Zone Alarm, which does not provide the user with such fine-tuning controls.

And do NOT apply Startup Delays to any firewall! You would be defeating the reason you have a firewall, by allowing some applications to launch and contact the Internet before they can be vetted by the firewall’s defenses.

-- rc primak

It isn’t just Zone Alarm which delays the opening of the Windows Desktop (delays the startup of Explorer.exe, among other things). Avast has a boot-time rootkit scan which runs whenever you log into any account, every time. Comodo is another firewall with proactive defenses which delays other programs’ startups, sometimes causing drivers to fail to load (and resulting in a Blue Screen or reboot).

I do NOT recommend using the Windows XP firewall without third party additions. Vista and Windows 7 have perfectly good firewalls, but Windows XP’s firewall is infamous for its lack of outbound protections — the very kind of protections you need to detect and clobber today’s bots and Trojan Horse infections. Sometimes you have to just live with a certain amount of inconvenience for the sake of added protections. And Avast doesn’t really need to do its boot-time scans if you are doing weekly Deep Scans for rootkits anyway. So turn off the feature. Not so easy in Zone Alarm, which does not provide the user with such fine-tuning controls.

And do NOT apply Startup Delays to any firewall! You would be defeating the reason you have a firewall, by allowing some applications to launch and contact the Internet before they can be vetted by the firewall’s defenses.

-- rc primak

It isn’t just Zone Alarm which delays the opening of the Windows Desktop (delays the startup of Explorer.exe, among other things). Avast has a boot-time rootkit scan which runs whenever you log into any account, every time. Comodo is another firewall with proactive defenses which delays other programs’ startups, sometimes causing drivers to fail to load (and resulting in a Blue Screen or reboot).

I do NOT recommend using the Windows XP firewall without third party additions. Vista and Windows 7 have perfectly good firewalls, but Windows XP’s firewall is infamous for its lack of outbound protections — the very kind of protections you need to detect and clobber today’s bots and Trojan Horse infections. Sometimes you have to just live with a certain amount of inconvenience for the sake of added protections. And Avast doesn’t really need to do its boot-time scans if you are doing weekly Deep Scans for rootkits anyway. So turn off the feature. Not so easy in Zone Alarm, which does not provide the user with such fine-tuning controls.

And do NOT apply Startup Delays to any firewall! You would be defeating the reason you have a firewall, by allowing some applications to launch and contact the Internet before they can be vetted by the firewall’s defenses.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Regarding Windows XP SP3, ALL your drivers should be backed up before applying this Service Pack. It’s not just the firewire drivers which can break or turn up missing.

Also, before doing any major Service Pack, users should make a full image backup or clone of their Windows partition or drive. It only makes sense, as hangups and other failures can occur.

-- rc primak

Well, at least we are seeing Google finally take one step to make their Chrome OS/ Chrome Browser more secure.

But I agree that while nearly all Chrome users could benefit from Avast, probably most Avast users do not want Chrome. No logic to that bundling, but Alwil must make money somehow if the free version of Avast is to survive. So I am ambivalent about this development. I think I can live with it, and I will remember to check the No Thanks checkbox for Chrome when installing Avast or during major Avast upgrades.

By the way, neither the Accept nor the No Thanks box comes pre-checked. You have to choose one or the other to proceed with the Avast installation. Much better than the way other free software places a check mark in the install box and you have to uncheck the box or suffer an unwanted adware installation.

-- rc primak

There is complete control of Program Permissions in Comodo Firewall. The feature you need to access is part of the Defense+ part of Comodo.

From the System Tray Icon, right-click and click on Open.

Highlight the Defense+ Icon at the top of the Comodo Splash Screen.

In the left-sidebar, click on Advanced. In the main window of that screen, click on Computer Security Policy.

A pop-up window will show Application Name, Treat As, and several Radio Buttons.

The top section lists several applications to which Comodo Defense+ has already applied rule sets on its own. The next few sections contain greyed-out entries which the user cannot safely change. But the interesting section is labeled All Applications. This is a section of the rules applied based on user behavior when confronted with pop-up alert dialogs, and for many of us, the results get a bit out of whack from time to time. In this section you can make changes to get some applications’ restrictions lifted, tightened, or removed altogether. Simply highlight any entry there, and use the Edit Radio Button. Or, Delete to get Comodo to stop applying any of its rules to the application. (Removing entries will cause a lot of pop-up warnings and dialogs, but sometimes it is best to start over with permissions on some applications.) More often, you can get the correct settings by looking in the pop-up Edit dialog box, and changing the Custom circle to the Predefined Policy circle. This makes Defense+ treat the application in a more standard way. Which pre-defined policy you choose depends on the Application. The Comodo Help files, as well as their on line User Forums can offer guidelines about which predefined policies do what and allow which things to happen. Careful selection can greatly reduce pop-up alerts, while maintaining the permissions needed by the application.

That’s as much detail as I can go into in this limited space. Experience will guide you to better decisions when the Application Rules need to be changed. For the most part, they do not need to be changed, but it is nice to know how to do this if the need ever arises. This is not the same at all as the Zone Alarm page with the full table of Applications and Permissions which many of us are used to, but with practice, it will become just as useful, if not better, due to the predefined policies being more flexible than those found in Zone Alarm.

From the normal Tray Notification pop-up dialog balloons, you can select to Treat As and apply a policy, either per session, or (by checking Remember This Setting) permanently (or until you go inside the Defense+ settings and make a change manually). When encountering a warning, it is best at first not to check off the Remember box until you are sure this is the policy you really want to apply to this Application.

-- rc primak

Regarding Zone Alarm 9 acting up, not functioning, and then leaving behind undeletable Registry Keys:

(1) Zone Alarm has their own special uninstaller and cleanup tool. Apparently, the reader did use these tools.

(2) For a more reliable and complete removal of any software, using RevoUninstaller in its Level 4 Mode can automatically remove files, folders and most Registry traces left behind in most uninstaller operations. The new Revo Pro version ($40.00) can also cleanup many failed uninstalls and failed installs, as well as clean up Registry traces most Registry cleaners would have trouble with. I cannot guarantee success with either of Revo’s uninstaller programs, but I have successfully completely removed Zone Alarm Free with the free version. I generally use RevoUninstaller on any program I want to completely remove. Then I run CCleaner’s Registry and System cleaners to make sure everything is gone. Very important when trying for a clean install or a clean reinstall.

-- rc primak