ZoneAlarm Pro Questions

[quantass]

I downloaded ZoneAlarm Pro v4 to act as my firewall on a setup with 2 PCs running Windows 2000 Pro (sp4). The 2 systems are connected to a Linksys NH1005 Hub which connects to an Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5360 ADSL Ethernet Modem. Both PCs are on nearly 24/7 running peer-2-peer apps Kazaa Lite K++ and eMule, CuteFTP, and Mirc.

With ZoneAlarm Pro v4 installed and launching my often used apps the program pops up alert messages to allow the requesting app to connect out to the internet or act as a server. Nice feature! eMule and Kazaa seem to be running fine even though both state that one should set their firewall to open incoming/outgoing ports (eMule: Incoming 4662, 4711 TCP & 4672 UDP and Outgoing: ALL PORTS | Kazaa: Incoming 1214 TCP and Outgoing: ALL PORTS). Other than allowing eMule/Kazaa to connect out to the internet and act as server via the Zone Alarm Pro popup alert window I never bothered "opening ports" as requested by those peer-2-peer apps. Again, everything seems fine.

My questions are:

1. eMule and Kazaa insist on opening specific incoming/outgoing ports. Via the ZoneAlarm Pro v4 alert popup when I allow eMule/Kazaa to connect out and act as a server does this completely allow ALL outgoing ports to be reached by the app?

2. Im confused. If I never opened any incoming ports for the app how exactly is the peer-2-peer app working?

BTW my ZoneAlarm Pro v4 Internet Zone Security is set to HIGH and does NOT have Allow Incoming/Outgoing UDP/TCP checkboxes active.

[cdroman]

I haven't used ZA for a long time but you can find answers for it here (http://www.computercops.biz/forum23.html&sid=ee3d0f907e8a28d0f1717d9d8ac7a985) .

[Nightblade]

Zone Alarm automatically knows what port to allow for the program. When u click ok for that program, it opens the ports for what u allow it to do i.e. : act as server (Kazaa) or just access to the internet (Internet Explorer)

I find it interesting that some simple programs want to access the internet. (cant give an example off hand but occasionaly i get weird programs that want access to the internet) I been using ZA Pro for 2 yrs now and love it. Wife hates the pop up buts thats cuz she doesnt understand it.

Tip: If u have a game or something that updates regulary, like the SwgClient_r which runs the Star Wars Galaxy game, I ran into problems with the pop up blocking (waiting for the yes or no) but I couldn't task-switch (alt-tab) over to it or go to desktop

Solution for ZoneAlarm is to open up the Zone Alarm program
click on Program Control (left side) then
click on the Programs tab (top) find the file name of the program you wish and then
right click on that file and check the "Changes Frequently"
this will stop all the pop ups for everytime that file changes.

Solution for getting out of the unstuck game if you get locked up easier than waiting for your task manager to appear is to hit the sleep button, let it go into the sleep function and then go back into the desktop and click the selection you want in the Zone Alarm pop-up. You might also want to use the above solution at this time so you dont forget again.