After unloading Zone Alarm and finally reaching the Avast site, I found
this posted to the forums by the moderator. I spent most of the night
running my AV program and spyware programs only to find it's their
problem. In addition, they created a patch for the mail shield which was
causing me grief, as it was slowing my news server to a crawl. The patch
seems to work, as does an update to Zone Alarm ver 5.5.062.011.




From forum moderator:

***** Zone Alarm Users - PLEASE READ! *****
® on: Today at 08:54:21 AM ¯

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Hi *,

it turned out that the latest version of avast antivirus (4.6.603),
namely it's new "Web Shield" component, is incompatible with ZoneAlarm's
privacy features (Cookie Control and Ad Blocking). The problem is very
easy to notice - it usually causes web pages to not load properly (or not
load at all).

For some, it is enough to set both of these controls in ZA from High to
Medium level. For others, it is necessary to turn off both of these
features for the Web Shield to work.

There's another work around that seems to be working. It consists of
setting up a proxy server in your browser, with the following details:

proxy server name: localhost
proxy server port: 12080

Please note that the proxy server server should be set only for the HTTP
protocol (other protocols such as HTTPS and FTP should be configured to
go outside without proxy - leaving the appropriate fields in the config
dialog blank).


We're currently investigating the issue and finding the best way for a
work around.

Thanks
Vlk

® Last Edit: Today at 09:07:02 AM by Vlk ¯


Vlk
Moderator
avast! Evangelist

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:16:34 GMT, Moe Hair wrote:

> After unloading Zone Alarm and finally reaching the Avast site, I found
> this posted to the forums by the moderator. I spent most of the night
> running my AV program and spyware programs only to find it's their
> problem. In addition, they created a patch for the mail shield which was
> causing me grief, as it was slowing my news server to a crawl. The patch
> seems to work, as does an update to Zone Alarm ver 5.5.062.011.
>
>
>
>
> From forum moderator:
>
> ***** Zone Alarm Users - PLEASE READ! *****
> ® on: Today at 08:54:21 AM ¯
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> Hi *,
>
> it turned out that the latest version of avast antivirus (4.6.603),
> namely it's new "Web Shield" component, is incompatible with ZoneAlarm's
> privacy features (Cookie Control and Ad Blocking). The problem is very
> easy to notice - it usually causes web pages to not load properly (or not
> load at all).
>
> For some, it is enough to set both of these controls in ZA from High to
> Medium level. For others, it is necessary to turn off both of these
> features for the Web Shield to work.
>
> There's another work around that seems to be working. It consists of
> setting up a proxy server in your browser, with the following details:
>
> proxy server name: localhost
> proxy server port: 12080
>
> Please note that the proxy server server should be set only for the HTTP
> protocol (other protocols such as HTTPS and FTP should be configured to
> go outside without proxy - leaving the appropriate fields in the config
> dialog blank).
>
>
> We're currently investigating the issue and finding the best way for a
> work around.
>
> Thanks
> Vlk
>
> ® Last Edit: Today at 09:07:02 AM by Vlk ¯
>
>
> Vlk
> Moderator
> avast! Evangelist

While the proxy server setting did help a little, it didn't solve all the
problems so I just change the cookie and pop-up blocking setting in Privacy
to none. That was the only thing that worked best. However, I am still
getting some blocks from Avast's WebShield for legitmate webpages I am
trying to access (I get a long message from Avast rather than the webpage I
try to visit.) I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. It just
surprises me that everyone wants to protect us from all the same things and
so then they conflict with each other. Perhaps software developers need to
do a bit more beta testing since this problem seems to have affected a
majority of ZoneAlarm and Avast users.

Patty

Moe Hair <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:C5nTd.4101$(E-Mail Removed):

> The patch
> seems to work, as does an update to Zone Alarm ver 5.5.062.011.
>
>

I take that back. The latest version of ZA still has incompatibility
problems with Avast. I've tried using the proxy alternative, but it
doesn't allow me to connect to the net. It does sounds better than
disabling the cookie control and ad blocking in Zone Alarm, though.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:24:05 GMT, Moe Hair wrote:

> Moe Hair <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:C5nTd.4101$(E-Mail Removed):
>
>> The patch
>> seems to work, as does an update to Zone Alarm ver 5.5.062.011.
>>
>>
>
> I take that back. The latest version of ZA still has incompatibility
> problems with Avast. I've tried using the proxy alternative, but it
> doesn't allow me to connect to the net. It does sounds better than
> disabling the cookie control and ad blocking in Zone Alarm, though.

Well, I just beefed up my cookie settings in the browsers and am leaving it
off in ZA for now. Only other choice is to disable the WebShield in Avast,
which I may have to do since it does have some problems with accessing some
pages on my local library's website. I figure they never had it before and
I appeared to be amply protected with my Hosts file, ZoneAlarm, Spybot, and
Adaware Plus. Not sure I even need the WebShield feature at this point.

Patty