zone alarm problems
 

Hi Has anyone on here had any problems with there zone alarm firewall recently, I am struggling to use the p.c. and after doing a bit of digging round zone alarm seems to be the culprit, it keeps saying its trying to initialize but doesnt manage too . So I have tried to uninstall it but it just ignores the instruction, can I uninstall it from the program files ? and is that safe. So Far I have had to system restore back to saturday with no luck and the system sounds like its continously writing to the hard drive, any ideas ?

Re: zone alarm problems
 

I don't use it anymore... its got more and more rubbish over the years.

Re: zone alarm problems
 

I haven't used ZA for few months (there's no version for Vista as yet), but IIRC, it writes log files and keeps a database in a director called "Temporary Internet Files" (or something similar).

Go to Task Manager and make sure that there's no ZA processes running then delete all the log files and the database from the "Temporary Internet Files" directory; I have a feeling that your problem might be a corrupted database file.

Failing that, download a new installation file from their website, do the above with regard to the "Temporary Internet Files" directory and then install the freshly downloaded software.

Hope this works for you.

Re: zone alarm problems
 

Thanks guys, just had one final attempt at deleting zone alarm and its worked, me p.c is flying along now, next question I suppose is do I risk reinstalling it or choose another firewall, Im already running windows defender, norton security 2005, ad aware se, ccleaner and eumig reg cleaner, any thoughts ?

Re: zone alarm problems
 

Blimey stewie what sort of supercomputer do you have if its "flying along" running Norton?! :eek: :lol:

Re: zone alarm problems
 

Well flying along might be a bit over the top ;) but zone alarm must have really slowed this pc down some, now just got to work out if its worth reinstalling zone alarm, been using it for years without a problem.:confused:

Re: zone alarm problems
 

I wouldn't bother Stewie... I've recently got rid of ZA from my parents PC after they got broadband - it'd been fine for a couple of years but suddenly their machine went down the toilet after I got them on bb.

Re: zone alarm problems
 

I had just reinstalled it when your post came through, think I will give one more go and see what happens, trouble is I dont know a good alternative

Re: zone alarm problems
 

Doesn't Norton include a firewall? So does Windows, and all I know is that you shouldn't be running any more than ONE firewall at a time. Might just be worth checking that all other firewalls (Norton? Windows?) are disabled before you start up ZA again.

I've been running ZA for a few years now with no problems.
I also bit the bullet and paid for AVG (anti-virus).

Other than that I've also run (at some point or other) AdAware SE, Spybot S&D, and Ewido.

If I could actually be ar5ed a better option might be to actually bother to configure the hardware firewall that comes included in the Belkin wireless modem/router that I have, but I took the "lazy" option of just installing ZA ;-)

Pete

Re: zone alarm problems
 

Ever thought that ZA was blocking something that didn't work on dial-up ;)

Its always worth checking things like logs before just blaming the app, could be a simple case of something is trying to do something that your FW wont allow, or should be allowing but has somehow got its knickers in a twist