Microsoft Fiasco
Am I the only one unable to get online now?
Finally called ATT to complain about not being able to connect to the internet for the last six hours, or so, and got a recorded message. Message said that there was some problem with the latest Microsoft update (that I just downloaded a few hours ago). Then it said to lower my security settings to be able to connect to the internet again.
So I played around with that, with no luck. The only thing that worked, was shutting off my Zonelabs firewall and anti- virus program.
Works fine without that, but I'm not protected.
Am I the only one?
Update: I found all I have to do to get online is lower the security setting on my Zonelabs firewall to Medium as opposed to High where it's usually set.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:45 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
This is related to a potential security bug in the internet naming system, or DNS. The security upgrades (which were rolled out over the past couple of days) have been reported to have problems with ZoneAlarm. (And lowering ZoneAlarm's setting is one workaround.)
See www.doxpara.com for more than you every wanted to know about this.
Thanks for the heads up. At this point it seems I'm the only one around here that was affected. At least nobody else has left any comments along that line. Maybe they're still stuck offline?
Interesting that lowering the ZoneAlarm settings is a workaround. I could have sworn the recording when I called AT&T said to lower the Windows firewall settings. I couldn't see any way to lower the Windows firewall settings and even turning it off didn't help. It was Zonelabs causing the conflict.
Now if you had a Mac you would not have these problems.
Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Hi Fred,
Here's another explanation page, which I just happened to come across after reading your post.
There was indeed an upgrade to the Internet itself, and ZoneAlarm wasn't ready for it.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1471
I'd check the ZoneAlarm site for a downloadable update as soon as it's ready. One of the commenters on this article says it can be trouble to get such a fix through ZoneAlarm itself, due to the nature of this problem.
We now return you to your Redwood area music station....;). Just good memories.
Regards,
Narration
leave it to mac-jerk to post that.....
"I'd check the ZoneAlarm site for a downloadable update as soon as it's ready.".
I have my firewall (and anti-virus) set to automatically download updates, so that should be taken care of. Oddly, I went to the Zonealarms web site earlier this morning and didn't find anything on this. Didn't look too long, though.
Thank you for the enlightenment. I am so glad I decided to read your blog, this is new to me. Shutting off ZoneAlarm fixed the problem, but now I feel very vulnerable. I'll keep checking back to see if anyone posts a solution. Thanks again.
Just set the firewall to Medium instead of High security. You don't need to turn it off. That worked for me.
I just received the new version of ZoneAlarm this morning. Interesting in that there was a pop- up window announcing the new version saying it was specifically meant to rectify this problem.
The new upgrade seems to have fixed the problem.
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