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Subject:Re: upgrade from 98 to XP From:Michael Oboryshko <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 7 Feb 2002 06:49:50 -0800 (PST)
Andrew wrote:
> The problem is - nearly everybody who uses
> ZoneAlarm must explicitly allow Internet
> Explorer, Outlook, etc. to use the network
> (otherwise you couldn't surf the web).
Not necessarily so, at least not in my case. I rely on ZoneAlarm
only to ride herd on my spyware. These days it seems everything
you install eventually tries to phone home. On my system IE has
to beg for permission, but I use Opera for surfing and web-based
email. Opera is the only app I allow to connect without asking.
For basic external security, I'm sitting behind a NAT router,
plus I do a few other things.
If some app tries to piggyback on IE, ZoneAlarm tells me IE is
trying to connect to the Internet. Since I don't surf with IE, I
just tell ZoneAlarm to deny the connection.
MS has apparently got wise to this. Win2k has something called
"Services and Controller App" that you have to grant connection
rights to, otherwise you get no Internet connectivity at all.
I'm sure this component is necessary for basic housekeeping,
like connecting to DNS servers, but I also am suspicious that it
contains MS spyware and other hooks for piggybacking. Wish I
knew more about what that thing is doing.
Win XP and .NET is a whole 'nother ball game with respect to
connectivity and spyware. I'm not installing any of it until I
understand it.
Mike O.
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