Question re Zone Alarm

[-- M --]

I'm not an Internet/ hacking expert by any means. However, when I get on the
Internet I run Cookie Muncher (cookie killer), Proxomitron (ad and pop-up
filter) and Zone Alarm (stop spyware and incoming attacks), figuring that
I'm safe. However, I recently went to a site --
http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ -- recommended by PC Magazine where they
will "attack" your computer through a series of checks to see how vulnerable
it is.
I was surprised to find that my computer failed all tests save one. Their
site was able to open and manipulate files on my computer. Isn't Zone Alarm
supposed to alert me when somebody "out there" tries to hack my computer? Or
have I completely misunderstood this program?

 

[Cre8]

http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ -- recommended by PC Magazine where they
will "attack" your computer through a series of checks to see how vulnerable
it is.
I was surprised to find that my computer failed all tests save one. Their
site was able to open and manipulate files on my computer. Isn't Zone Alarm
supposed to alert me when somebody "out there" tries to hack my computer? Or
have I completely misunderstood this program?

This are exploits based on browser configurations. This site:
http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/main-nf.htm
should give you the info you need
C8

 

[tlshell]

I was surprised to find that my computer failed all tests save one. Their
site was able to open and manipulate files on my computer. Isn't Zone Alarm
supposed to alert me when somebody "out there" tries to hack my computer? Or
have I completely misunderstood this program?

If you haven't patched your version of MSIE, and your Windows system,
then there's only so much that the other programs can do.

I went there and the only thing that happened was that they were able
to display some information about my browser and system after I OK'd
running scripts. The next thing I saw was a weird popup message saying
that I wasn't really running MSIE, or else that I wasn't using a
Windows system. (Both false.) That was the end of it.