Info : ZoneAlarm with AV v5.0

ZoneLabs seem to be having troubles . . .

FAQ

regards

 

Not a surprise, CA is trying to bang a few nails into it to adapt it for radio, so to speak (only Monty Python fans of old will remember that one).

ZoneAlarm was a niche product, pretty focused, now CA is going to bloat it up. If they can keep the bugs out and keep it from being too much overhead, they have a great product on their hands.

Now, with that said, I've witnessed some of CA's other offerings (we use them at work to push patches and monitor software installations). Generally speaking, if the CA push software goes bad on a machine, there is no recovery, we have to wipe and reinstall. This does not make for happy clients. But since it usually doesn't do bad things, we sysadmins like it. Need to patch a couple of hundred boxes in a day? Yep, it'll do that.

 

Hi Junki - I remember the Monty Python quote.
I don't think we will be able to use a working version of this stuff 'til about
2006, and by then I will have lost interest. Why would any SW house
try to make a firewall + antivirus ? All bundled into one package ?
It's a good thought, but totally impracticable for this generation of PCs.
In my active time - working for my living - CA was stuffed with big ideas
but no realistic/experienced developers. It's the same today more or less.
regards

 

I am bumping up this post as I see that recently, some people seem
determined to install Zone Alarm 5.0.
I do not think this is a good idea at present.
regards

 

Merlin, I agree.

There is a v5.0 .043 from June 21 that I'm using/testing now (Pro) version and many of the problems from that 1st 5.0 seems to be solved.

Recent threads on this:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=30933

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=31853

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=31702 V4.5 available

Regards - Charles

 

I'm running ZA Pro v5.0.590.043 and seem to see a problem I've never had before. It's the way it stores and saves IEs cookies. I have a list of cookies that I save when cache cleaner runs. If you go into IE and select Tools / Internet Options and click Delete Cookies, I believe a problem occurs.
The settings in ZAP remain, with the name of your cookies to be saved. Since these cookies are no longer on your hard drive, the location for temporary internet files in IE changes. I was testing this and saw the location change. IE created a location with a ~1 in every directory and subdirectory. As I browsed the net picking up new cookies, ZAP was not seeing a one. There were no new cookies in the list viewing cache cleaner.
ZAP was looking in the original directory, IE was putting the new data in the newly created ~1 directory. This is a hard one to explain but it all started with v5 of ZAP. Take a close look at IE Tools / Internet Options / Settings and where it places your temporary internet files.

 

Hello corrigme,

On first blush:

I think it is understandable actually that this happened. ZAP's saved cookies is not only a list - in the sense of a parameter file - as far as I can tell, but is based on the physical presence of the selected cookie in IE's folders as well. Take it away - delete it by another process - and the results are unpredictable. Lots of software operates this way and is not considered a bug per se.

I assume that what the designers had in mind was to have ZAP delete the saved cookies when no longer wanted. I'm also wondering why you didn't do this.

Its late for me and I'll look at this issue over the weekend. If you have further input, please post back.

Regards - Charles

 

Interesting........ This is what's happening to me.

http://forums.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=cfg&message.id=15073

 

Thanks for replying......

"I assume that what the designers had in mind was to have ZAP delete the saved cookies when no longer wanted. I'm also wondering why you didn't do this "

That probably would have fixed it if I went in and cleared the list in ZAP. That was my next test to do.

 

Hi corrigme,

Could you clear up some points?

You seem to be saying that you've used IE to delete all the cookies when running previous 4.5 version and no problem - true?

If you read the help file on cookies - ZAP looks at a default location for the cookie source, so not a supprise. I suspect that if you installed ZAP fresh, it would find the new locations. Have you fixed the problem with IE BTW?

What's not clear to me is whether this is ZAP's doing or IE's problem. Again, you get unpredictable results when fooling around with the basic assumptions built into software.

I looked at the ZL forums, I saw you were ignored and I can't find any specific references to the conditions that you describe other than yours. I suggest that you initiate a thread of your own and see what you get. Make it a "snappy" title its really crowded in that forum and any post or thread is easy to overlook.

BTW, thanks for the headsup on the cookie issue - been away and haven't had a chance to look at the ZL forums for awhile. I personally don't have a problem w/ cookies - running this .043 version.

Regards - Charles

 

It all started when I went into ZAP to save a cookie in cookie cleaner. I noticed that the rest of my saved cookies were gone and no new cookies were being seen (both panes were empty). Wait a minute, this can't be. I went into documents and setting / user/ cookies and they were all there yet ZAP wasn't seeing them. Then I noticed that my temporary internet files location in IE was changed to the ~1 files. To make a long story short, a reboot changed my temporary internet files, in IE, back to normal and ZAP saw everything again. After reading the ZA forum, it looks like ZAP is doing something strange to the directory where your temporary internet files are stored. It's random, that's what makes it hard to explain. Right now it's working fine. Thanks for replying. According to the "guru" in the ZA forum, they are working on a fix for this. I just might go back to the previous version, zapSetup_50_590_015.exe, if it continues. The only thing I guess about my particular problem is that nobody looked at IEs temporary internet file settings when they noticed their cookies were gone for the ZAP list. I get anal when it comes to this stuff. If ZA can' see the cookies, then where is IE putting them. I guess when there is a bug in the software, anything can happen.

 

AAAAAAHHHHH, it just happened again. Going into ZAP Privacy and click "clean now" causes the problem. I looked at IE and the ~1 names are back. Time to reboot.

 

FYI - I posted in ZL forum in the Privacy thread. I'll see what happens.

 

Hi corrigme,

I'll be following your thread.

corrigme's ZL forum thread: http://forums.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=Privacy&message.id=2433

If you go back, I think it would be better to go back to the last 4.5 version. If you don't have the setup exe for it, its still can be downdloaded from ZL:

http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/information/zap/releaseHistory.html

Regards - Charles

 

I did go back to the latest 4.5 version.