Is Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Safe to Allow Internet Access

[Jim]

Periodically my Zone Alarm Firewall has recently started asking if I
should allow the subject program to act as a server to the internet.
I don't know what this program does. The URL's that pop up are
different with each request (even the front end of the URL). When I
first booted up today, the URL that came up ended with NS, so I
suppose it could be valid, but when I told it no yesterday I had no
problems. Any idea what this might be and if it's definitely safe or
unsafe to say "yes".

Jim

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Description of Svchost.exe: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q250/3/20.ASP Default Processes in Windows 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q263/2/01.ASP
For a list of running tasks, open a command prompt, and type: netstat -ano then: tasklist /svc (Pro edition only)

 

[Jim]

Thanks. Didn't know that the subject referred to the svchost.exe
task.

I have 6 instances of svchost running, same as it ever was.