Zone Alarm misbehaviour

Taffycat

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The ZA in question was on my OH's XP-pro. It had been running comfortably with the AV component of MSE. (If you recall, MSE for XP was a bit quirky and one could only download the AV part, so rather than use Microsoft's own firewall... which folk used to say was, perhaps not so efficient on XP, we stuck with ZA.)

Sorry - that sounds a bit "involved" but hope you've got the gist.... anyway, when I attempted to update ZA (free version btw) yesterday, I became really annoyed when it began to download it's toolbar!

Before anyone jumps on me, yes, I saw three "ticks" when I was going through the installation procedure. However, when I hovered the mouse over them, they didn't react as they should, so I couldn't un-check them. (Dumbly, I assumed there would be another option to refuse the toolbar, somewhere along the line...)

When SuperAntiSpyware popped-up, warning me that a programme was trying to change the browser, I told it to block. I also stopped the installer, then began the procedure again. This time, when I hovered over those ticks, they responded, so I un-ticked all three of them! But guess what, ZA had other ideas and installed it anyway. It changed the browser's home page to ZA etc.

Enough was enough so I decided to completely uninstall the whole darned thing. (Naturally, I turned-on Windows own firewall afterwards.) But, the browser was still (in my view) hi-jacked. So I used CC to make sure all left-over bits and pieces were removed from the registry. Then re-booted.

Blasted ZA promptly re-appeared in the sys tray, informing me that the system "is protected!" I don't see how, because its gubbins have been uninstalled, but indeed, it had even switched off Windows Firewall. :wall: (Yes, I know and understand that one cannot use two firewalls together... but heck, there should now only be one on the machine. Windows Firewall.)

I can only conclude that ZA has now become no better than a piece of malware, because even after switching off the PC completely, for several minutes, it still returned to the sys tray on re-boot... again!

Does anyone know of a way to get rid of it please...? Right now, the only way is to right click the sys tray icon to tell it to quit. (On the last occasion, at least it hadn't succeeded in turning off Windows Firewall again - but obviously I'll have to check it whenever the PC is re-booted.

Thanks very much for reading, any suggestions gratefully received. :thumb:

(Footnote: XP is working fine on that old PC, but yes, it feels a bit clunky now, so seriously thinking of installing a more up-to-date OS,,, which I'm sure someone will suggest, lol. But therein lies another small problem, for a different thread... needing to tackle this one first though. :D)
 
ZoneAlarm, IMHO, became a virus some time ago, indeed, ANY program that insists on installing a "toolbar" is Malware/Trojan/Virus activity.

ZA has also been good at "hiding" and refusing to uninstall, just like any other Virus, so much so that there is an uninstall tool supplied by BleepingComputers.

There was/is nothing wrong with XPs firewall for the home user, it was just never turned on in the beginning. :lol:

As for upgrading the Operating System, depending on the hardware, I see two choices ... W7 or Linux. You'll be hard pressed in finding a copy of W7 outside Ebay.

Yes, I can recommend Linux, as long as NO games are involved, well real games.

One other option, clean reinstall XP, buy new hardware ... oh, that's two. :rolleyes:
 
Oh many thanks for the reply Mucks. I will pop over to Bleeping Computer in a bit, and use their uninstall tool - great! :) Will be really glad to be rid of it. I too dislike any application/programme that insists upon "doing-its-own-thing."

I don't think Terry would be able to manage Linux - Windows 7 might be a better option. (Actually, the copy I purchased with my new rig last summer, was an OEM version. Is that one install only? I think it would need to have a different Microsoft serial code though... wouldn't I, duh... I must refresh my memory, getting covered in confusion again lol.)
 
Well that worked like a charm! :D After a re-boot, there is no sign of that pesky ZA icon - and Win Firewall was unimpeded. So, I'm a very happy bunny again. Thank you :D
 
I'm gonna tell Terry on you ... :)


Linux doesn't need anyone special to 'operate' it ... it can, and in a lot of cases, look just like windows, without any copyright infringements.

You had a 'problem' with a Windows program you will not even see in Linux. :lol:

You will, however, just as you have in the past on your present OS, need advice and ability of someone who can help/point you in the right direction to 'fix' the problem.

A lot of ordinary people can fix Linux, just may need some help with the jargon used. :)


Anyway, glad you got it sorted ... KISS!
 
When I saw this thread title I started humming 'Ain't misbehavin' ' in this instance the Leon Redbone version. Wot a luvvly tune.

All software that installs unwanted extras must die! Ist verbotten schweinhund! Die, Englischer Tommy pig dog!

Adobe Flash thingie once installed a full version of Chrome on my computer without my asking so I sent a tactical nuclear missile to their home - ha ha!

I haven't used Zone alarm for at least ten years.

Excuse me, I'm just going to see what exactly was in that recipe...
 
I don't think Terry would be able to manage Linux

Hi Taffycat. You could try out Bohdi from a usb stick to see if Terry would be able to cope.Guy who runs it is a helpful sort and he has made a pretty neat distro. E17 is the biz as a desktop.

Main Site

What is Bodhi Linux



Installation to a USB


Won't take up much of your time and you may be pleasantly surprised.:D

Scratch the above as I just remembered you are an intrepid Guild Wars 2 player. :lol:
 
Scratch the above as I just remembered you are an intrepid Guild Wars 2 player. :lol:

As I understand it TC plays GW2 on her machine whilst other half not a gamer, has a seperate machine, so a Linux Distro is on the cards.

Gotta be worth a try, messin' with a few live distros. Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux might also be worth a try if they run from a usb stick.

And my fave, Mint KDE, runs as a live distro.
 
As I understand it TC plays GW2 on her machine whilst other half not a gamer, has a seperate machine, so a Linux Distro is on the cards.

Gotta be worth a try, messin' with a few live distros. Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux might also be worth a try if they run from a usb stick.

And my fave, Mint KDE, runs as a live distro.

Plenty of choices and loads of folks here to help out. Will the cat and dog play nicely though
th_run-around-smiley.gif
 
I don't think Terry would be able to manage Linux -

My Da is 75, I showed him Linux Mint and before I knew it he had formatted his laptop with it. He love it and says its less complicated then Windows 7
 
Okay, you all make a very convincing argument for Linux :D Oh, and I really wasn't "dissing" Terry at all, but he would be the first to tell you that he is not at all computer savvy. He enjoys surfing though, and spends a lot of time doing that.

To be fair, that old XP machine is still surprisingly fast to boot up... it takes just two or three minutes more than my current rig ...despite having quite a lot of stuff on there (which I used to use. Vista was much worse... it used to take about a week!! :lol:) I just tend to notice that it's a bit "clunky" compared to Win 7... plus I'm a tad concerned about it becoming "obsolete" in time (so far as Microsoft are concerned, that is.)
 
Okay, you all make a very convincing argument for Linux :D Oh, and I really wasn't "dissing" Terry at all, but he would be the first to tell you that he is not at all computer savvy. He enjoys surfing though, and spends a lot of time doing that.

To be fair, that old XP machine is still surprisingly fast to boot up... it takes just two or three minutes more than my current rig ...despite having quite a lot of stuff on there (which I used to use. Vista was much worse... it used to take about a week!! :lol:) I just tend to notice that it's a bit "clunky" compared to Win 7... plus I'm a tad concerned about it becoming "obsolete" in time (so far as Microsoft are concerned, that is.)

http://macpup.org/

http://porteus.org/

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy53

Put any of these or the others mentioned on a usb stick and they will all load faster than your present XP. You can keep the XP as a fallback. An if you make a small partition on your hd then any of the distros mentioned could use that for permenant storage.
You would have the best of both worlds and in time the black cloud of Redmond will be no more than a fading memory. :lol:
 
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