JimL said:
As for making the denial permament, as I said a few lines above,
that's the easy part. But I don't like turning off stuff I know
nothing about - thus my query.
I'm using ZoneAlarm - a name known to start flame wars. A guess the
only thing I _don't_ like about it is that while it sort of
identifies what is asking for access, it isn't very clear. Like many
gurus, ZA assumes you already know what it's talking about.
For example, last night I got a notice that SupportSoft Agent wanted
to access my trusted zone. By search I found a SupportSoft folder
full of dll's and XML readme's that nothing in XP will read. Googling
got me a _whole lot_ of stuff about a whole lot of very
different things regarding SupportSoft, but none of it was definitive
or said what was on JimL's computer.
Thanks
ZA is actually a decent product, and relatively easy to use. Anything
you permanently Deny can be "undenied" in one of its standard menues; I
forget which one since I no longer use it, but it's a descriptive line
and not hard to find except for a gazillion other entries around it if
you've never cleared the logs.
In general, if one haven't asked for anything from a SupportSoft, or
don't expect it to happen, and it seems to come out of nowhere, I just
go ahead and deny it. Once in a great while if I'm not sure because it
might be something I have running in the background I won't make a rule
to permanently Deny it but I do watch to see if anything stopped working
or if things I expected to happen didn't happen, on subsequent Denies,
then I'll go ahead and set a permanent rule.
In the extreme, if you suspect you've frogged things up with ZA's
rules, Denies and Allows, just uninstall/reinstall and start training it
all over again.
You can also usually take any filename that comes up and search for
it on Google to see what it is and what it might be doing.
It won't take long and soon you'll be understanding a lot more about
what's going on.
I hope I'm not sounding condescending, but just in case you're not fully
aware, here is a list of protections in general that you should be
running:
-- Firewall. You have that.
-- Antivirus program, kept up to date. Both free and pay for versions
of excellent programs are available.
-- Anti-spyware programs, to detect non-viral malware that AV won't
see. The general online concensus is that a minimum of 3 such programs
should be used since there is not yet a turn-key all-inclusive such
program. Each have their own power and weak points.
-- Adhere to safe surfing practices, keep your email address off of any
web sites you aren't positive are "safe" sites, and work toward learning
how to research whether a site is reliable or not. Google again does
well in this area but other search engines can too. Google gives a
symbolic indication of whether a site is safe or not for all its
lookups.
I'm not filling this post with a bunch of references and links just in
case you already know all of that. If not though, simply ask here and
you will get good responses with suggestions and answers that should
work well for you.
HTH,
Twayne`
