I hereby declare Zone Labs, manufacturer of a personal firewall variously called Zone Alarm and Computer Associates EZ Armor, public enemy number one. They’ve committed a number of offenses that have the net result of preventing Mozilla Firefox from running on computers that have been infected with their crappy software. Here’s what happens:
1. You install Firefox on a computer that has previously had Zone Alarm installed and then un-installed. Most people will un-install Zone Alarm after a few minutes because it’s so annoying.
2. Firefox reports a “connection refused” error each time it tries to access any web site at all.
3. You go to the Firefox BBS for advice, wade through 18 pages of postings, and learn you have to install a newer version of Zone Alarm.
4. You download the new version of Zone Alarm and try to install it, only to get an error message that says it can’t be installed until you un-install the previous version.
5. You can’t un-install the previous version because you’ve already un-installed it.
6. You’re screwed, Firefox is screwed, and you want to beat the crap out of the entire Zone Labs crew.
But there is a way around this: delete the Zone Labs folder in Program Files, and, using regedit, remove all references to Zone Alarm and Zone Labs from the Windows registry. Now you can install the new version of Zone Alarm, run Mozilla, permit it to pass the firewall, and then un-install the crappy firewall. If you have XP with SP2, you probably need to un-install SP2 before doing this.
Zone Labs’ software continues to block Internet access after the firewall has been disabled, and the older version leaves parts of itself on your computer after it’s been un-installed. Their software is indistinguishable from a virus and nobody should use it anywhere at any time.
Zone Labs sucks.
UPDATE: Not all versions of Zone Alarm have this problem – the current one ( 5.5.062.000) appears to be OK, and the one they were shipping three months ago was OK. In between then and now, there were at least two defective versions. The problem is, however, that if you installed and then un-installed the defective version you probably don’t know what it was.
I don’t personally use or have a need for a personal firewall because I have a LAN that sits behind a NAT box/firewall/router. But why anybody who builds a personal firewall sees a need to block browser accesses to the Internet is a matter of great mystery to me, but what would I know?
Based on past performance I stand by the claim that Zone Labs sucks and would not recommend their software to anyone. If you can’t do basic Software QA you don’t belong on my gear.
I have a similar opinion of Symantec, based on their product support strategy. They will not provide telephone support without a fee over and above the cost of the product, and their web knowledge base is totally inadequate. The only thing they do well is issue refunds, presumably because they’ve had so much practice at it.
The world is wide open for a good anti-spam and anti-virus company.
PS — ZoneAlarm is incompatible with Windows XP after SP2 has been installed. Uninstall Zonealarm before installing SP2 (I know, it’s mostly too late). The Windows firewall in SP2 is mostly good enough.
Aha – good to know.
Wow.
I haven’t had any of the problems you’ve had, but then again, I’ve never uninstalled ZoneAlarm. Also, I probably have an older version of it (I’ve heard bad things about the newer ones). Firefox works fine on three machines that I use — 2-WinME (there’s a product that sucks!) and Win2K.
Just curious — what firewall solution do you use?
It’s perfectly distinguishable from a virus.
It doesn’t spread by itself, or install itself without you telling it to.
It’s even perfectly distinguishable from a trojan, in that it keeps running when you uninstall because of a bug in the uninstall process, rather than by intent (I’m assuming – certainly the GRC people think ZoneAlarm is good, and they’re Very Serious computer security people, and it seems stunningly unlikely that the Zone people would intentionally do something so annoying. It can’t help their business plans, after all, to peeve users of their free product.)
It’s amazing how concentrated the BS can be.
I’m currently running XP Pro w/SP2 installed. Am running ZA with no problems at all. I’ve been using Mozilla/Windows for nearly two years with no problems, and have encountered no problems while trying out Firefox as well.
I’ve also un-installed and re-installed ZA several times, and never had to muck around with the registry.
Sounds like someone is blaming their problems on someone else’s software…
Wrong, Casey Tompkins – go check the Firefox BBS I linked in the orginal post and you’ll see dozens of messages confirming the fact that some versions of Zone Alarm will prevent new browsers from running and continue to do so after they’ve allegedly been de-installed. One comment I found over there: “Anyway the current version 5.5.062.000 of ZA suite is no longer conflicting with FF (although the previous two ZA releases did.)”
And I can confirm that the new version, which I just installed a couple days ago, will not install until all traces of the older version are removed by hand.
You’re welcome to worship the ground that Steve Gibson walks on if you wish, but don’t bullshit me.
I can’t comment on Mozilla, Stopzilla or any *zilla whatsoever, nor on Firefox, but the allegation that ZoneAlarm is incompatible with XPsp2 or plain-vanilla IEX 6 is not only ludicrous but defamatory. I would be a little careful about defaming widely-used and highly useful software if I were commenting on or running a website. Intentionally damaging other people’s business is [choose your own completion].
I see I owe Richard a bit of an apology; I wasn’t aware of the “older versions did work, but the latest doesn’t” twist.
You see, I still use ZA Pro 3.0.082. It works quite well with my XP Pro w/SP2.
My apologies, Mr. Bennett. While I don’t worship Steve Gibson {g}, I’ll be happy to retract my statement that you are full of it. I was wrong.
I should be able to get this foot out of my mouth any minute now…
That said, has anyone determined whether any of this relates to SP2’s improved firewall? I made sure that thing was off, but my ISP tech support remarked that sometimes even that won’t do it, and some folks need to download some sort of patch from MS to really kill it, if desired.
Thank you Casey, that’s very gracious of you. People are telling me that the latest version of ZA works with SP2, and seems to have also corrected the un-install bug. I can’t comment on any of this from experience.
I have zone alarm security suite 5.5.062. I just got a cable modem put in and now, over half the time, ZA will not let me open up internet explorer. I have to manually shut down ZA,-which I do not like having to do-, open i.e., just to get on the internet. Then I can go back and turn on zone alarm which leaves me exposed for a few seconds which is a few seconds too many for me. I’d love to hear how to fix this.
Here’s another public enemy: System Mechanic (Iolo Technologies), they insert keyloggers into their 30 free trials. Luckily, as sucky as zone alarm has been lately, it found it, and identified the file, which was system mechanic 5. Pass it on.
1. Install Zone Alarm
2. Engage Internet Lock
3. Open Zone Alarm, go to Program Control and give Generic Host, and Sevices ‘Pass Lock Permission’
4. Start FireFox and try to browse
5. Open Zone Alarm, go to Program Control and give FireFox ‘Pass Lock Permission’
6. Always run Zone Alarm with the Internet Lock ON
7. Yay, you learned how to setup Zone Alarm the right way
Zone Alarm’s de-install didn’t work correctly for me, so I won’t be using it again, but thanks for playing.
To get Firefox working with Zone Alarm:
1) Select Zone Alarm’s ‘program control’ tab
2) Right click on the FireFox entry, and selcet ‘options’
3) UN-TICK, the box next to ‘Enable Privacy for this program’
Done.
Nobody should install Zone Alarm.
Agree re suckiness of ZA. Installed free version and can’t uninstall; says vsmon.exe file can’t be found and so can’t be deleted; still can’t connect to internet. IE is hijaced to ZA “fix-it” page saying it’ll take 5 to 15 minutes to fix. Ha Ha Ha. More like 5 to 15 hours and still not fixed! All ZA “fixes” are totally useless. Uninstall program totally useless, as is this company.