Recommend a free firewall or stick with xp?

ActiveX does not work with my Firefox. I use ActiveX/IE only for WindowsUpdate & OfficeUpdate.

Gerald

If it works for you, good for you. Many people at one time run into severe problems with their PFW, either that it is blocking traffic that they don't want blocked and they don't find any option to change it or that it slows down their systems dramatically in particular when under "attacks" which aren't really attacks but maybe just a simple port scan. Many "features" of the PFW only work in certain situations but noone tells the user about that either, so that they are basically clueless what to do. I heard too many stories of people where after some normal software update or similar they got an outbound warning message because the new update hasn't been recognized yet by the PFW and people kind of panicked because of this strange but severe warning message. They tried to be on the safe side and blocked everything but did not know what to do to verify whether there has been an problem or not. So, if they have a problem the user does not know if there is actually a real problem or not and he does not know what to do to figure it out either. A PFW does not help with this it just confronts the user with a vague problem.

Kind of the same like the blocked trojan ports which (I don't know if this is still the case) where blocked for out-bound connections! So, all what happened was that a program or your browser opened an out-bound connection and the IP stack assigned a "trojan" port on the local interface to this connection (any connection goes from a local port to a remote port, just on the client side no one is listening to the port). All of a sudden, just with a simple click on a link, the PFW popped up and warned of access to a trojan port! Which average user does know what to do now?

BTW, ZA itself may be exploitable, too, i.e. vulnerablities of ZA itself.

Gerald

This is not an exploit. As long as the user is logged in as administrator and runs malware there is nothing anyone can do. Software running as administrator can do whatever it likes to do. Noone even pretended that some malware that someone started as administrator can reconfigure windows XP firewall, some PFW, whatever local security policies you configured, any access rights on any file, your complete filesystem and computer including BIOS. It is ridiculous to believe that things that you run as Administrator are still limited in actions. It would be nice to have several grades of administrator privileges but generally and in particular on Windows you don't have that. The administrator can do whatever he likes. That is the purpose of this account. However, you are not supposed to use your computer with administrator priveleges. That's what user accounts are for.

I guess this guy would even consider the "format" command malware, because he started it, answer two questions with yes and afterwards his whole harddrive was gone...

Gerald

Which other software does require ActiveX? I don't use any. I use windowsupdate and officeupdate. That's it. Despite of that, everything else I have uses its own update functions or requires good old download and manual install. I would never ever run or install an other activex control while logged in as administrator for a start. And in the normal user account I don't like webpages that require activex anyway. IBM uses ActiveX intensively for their PC support pages. I don't use these anymore and most things are available in other form anyway.

The user should always keep in mind that any software he runs or installs including ActiveX (and that's the mean thing that it is not clear to many people that using ActiveX control is just about the same as downloading and executing or installing something from CD) can read any of his data, all his e-mails and can log any of his passwords if it likes to do so. Therefore the user should be extremely careful about what he uses and installs. Only use software from trustworthy sources and check before you install if the company has a history with spyware. Microsoft updates is obviously "trustworthy" because, well, you are running Windows and Windows has full control over everything you do. Your computer manufacturer may be trustworthy for you, too, because at least for laptops they pre-install a whole bunch of additional software which is usually pretty important (else reformat and reinstall from an original windows cd).

The only pages that require ActiveX and that I remember from the last couple of months are the PFW/AV companies with their online scans. Well, obviously they need access if you want them to scan your computer and all your files, but I would still feel much better, when I could just download the thing and run it normally. Online scans for instance do not allow a scan in Windows' safe mode (do they?).

Gerald

Your whole paragraph is nonsensical. Oh, and arrogant.

Just believe in the "control" you get. The only arrogance I would see here is you to believe in the power of control the PFW gives you. So if you really think that you installed your PFW because you are not smart enough, well obviously you proved my point very well. If you are smart enough and know what a PFW can do and what not and you know not to rely on it, well, then there is no reason to insult people. I never said that you cannot run your PFW although I think there are better tools that achieve exactly what a PFW _can_ achieve (which is not what is wants to achieve and claims to achieve). And the "control" you get is only something worth if you understand the control and what it really is and not what is claims to be...

Gerald

What arrogance you are talking about. I never even said that what I wrote applies to you. But for whatever reason you immediately think that it does apply to you. Well, if I were you this should make you start thinking. But you really trying to prove the point that you are actually belong to the non-smart suicide PFW user...