Outpost free is getting quite old now, so you might do better with Outpost Pro. Also, you may have trouble if there are remnants of previous firewalls hanging around on your system, ZA leaves things behind and I imagine the others do also. Have a look in your hidden devices and clear out anything in there that might be left over from other firewalls. I once found part of ZA loaded and running even after I did a /clean uninstall. Couldn't believe it...
After seeing what an atrocious job Sygate Free does
I installed it, ran it, and it won't allow any traffic at all! I put it in Rules Wizard mode, and nothing happens. I told it to allow my browser and Xnews, and it won't. Does anybody know why it might be doing this?
Outpost Free is a fine firewall. I have used it for a long time. If you uninstalled another firewall, it may have left your system with a break in the chain connects programs to the network card. This is called the Winsock. There is a couple of ways to fix this.
If you go into "Add/Remove Programs" in the control panel. Click on the windows programs and you'll find the networking services. Uncheck this one and click ok. Reboot the computer and go to the same screen and put a check back in the box for this service. Click ok again and reboot. This should fix you winsock and give you back internet service.
If this doesn't do it, there is another way. There is a program out there that fixes the Winsock for you. It is called, Winsock Fix. It is freeware by Option Explicit Software Solutions. I don't have a link for it but you might google it or search some of the freeware sights.
Good luck. Ed
I found the link to Winsock Fix.
elaich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:
I found the answer on an Outpost forum. It's a bug. To get around it, you have to set the policy to "block most" and then write rules for your allowed apps.
Apparently, the learning mode never worked properly.
BTW, the above URL should be
Learning mode has always worked perfectly for me on several computers. I've never had to "write rules".
"Ed" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:
Fine. It worked great for you. Not for me. Here's is the post from:
"However Outpost Free has a common (and irritating) bug where all connections are blocked with the reason "Learning Mode". The workaround for this is to switch to Block Most policy (shutting down and restarting Outpost while online will also work, but would leave your system unprotected momentarily - so this is not recommended). The downside is that you have to create all the rules in advance for applications that need Internet access."
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