I upgraded the free ZoneAlarm a few days ago, haven’t not done so in about 6 months, and was annoyed when it started asking me if I wanted to allow all the programs I’d previously allowed.¬¨‚Ć I thought upgrades were supposed to carry over the settings too?
However, I’d noticed this morning that ActiveSync, which I use with my PDA/phone, wasn’t able to fully connect. It’ll see the phone when I plug it in, but can’t sync. Looking in ZoneAlarm’s allowed list, everything to do with ActiveSync had full access already, but only by disabling the firewall could the phone sync correctly.
It seems the problem lies with “zones”. ActiveSync (at least, version 4.5 that I’m using) creates a network connection between the PC and phone, complete with IP addresses and stuff. In ZoneAlarm’s firewall zones, the virtual adapter “Windows Mobile-based device” was set to have its IP range in the “Internet” zone. Flick this over to “Trusted” instead, and magically it all works again!
Dump ZoneAlarm and get yourself a copy of COMODO:
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
It’s a much better product than ZoneAlarm, and it’s free, the pro version doesn’t cost a penny.
But ZoneAlarm works (now). How is Comodo better? Bear in mind that all I need a software firewall for is to warn me when something on my PC is trying to access the internet behind my back – I’ve got a hardware firewall for everything else.
deKay you Rock !!
I have always just turned off zone alarm whenever I needed to sync my phone. I went through MS site and other adding programs and services… none of it worked. How simple is just putting it in the trusted zone.
Awesome.
This did not help on my side. After some searching and thinking I added an item in
Zonealarm > Firewall > Zones > Add > Subnet
Trusted – 169.254.2.0/255.255.255.0 – MyPDA
Now it works here, too.