Firewall problem with AOL

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I’ve been trying to download ZoneAlarm, but find it’s blocking my access to AOL, so I’ve uninstalled it again. Thought it must be incompatible with Aol, however, I have seen a computer which uses AOL and has a ZoneAlarm firewall—so it may be that I don’t know how to configure it.) I’ve also used the free trials of Macafee and Outpost, so could go ahead and buy one of these—question is, which one? Any advice, please?

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You can use ZoneAlarm or ZoneAlarm Pro with AOL. Make sure you download the latest version. When it asks for permissions to access the internet, tell it to always allow and click Yes. HTH

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Well, I did try that. But my computer really didn’t seem to like Zone Alarm—it even crashed when I was trying to uninstall the programme, and since I was only installing a 15 days trial, I’ve given up on it. Assuming that there are no free fire walls (only trial versions), I need to decide a) whether to upgrade to Broadband, in which case AOL give you MacAfee free buy Macafee and stay on dial up c) buy Outpost and stay on dial up. Bit of a dilemma.

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The other “good” free firewall is Sygate Personal Firewall. Please search this board for a download link.

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Just look two posts upward for it.

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I’d stay away from all three options that you propose.

Is AOL the only game in town for you? Any other providers available?
If AOL IS the only one, I would get it but omit the McAfee product and get some other firewall like Sygate as one example. ( Free )
Do you do enough web surfing and downloading that justifies broadband?
I do agree with Doc Watson in that ZA should work with any of the existing versions that you propose.

SYGATE FIREWALL

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Don’t have to search, it’s right here. You want the Personal Firewall not the Pro version, (the second one on the page) it’s for personal use.

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What Liberty Raynes said in his post rang a bell ….. are you running AOL 9 with the built-in firewall ?? if so, that may be why you are having problems with ZoneAlarm. Two firewalls on the same system tend not to work and play well together. Just as you should shut down XP’s firewall when you install a third party firewall, you probably should do the same with AOL’s firewall before trying ZoneAlarm. The conflict might have been the cause of the system crash.

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Since you already use AOL, why not simply download the new AOL 9 Security version? It comes with a pre-configured firewall. You can get it here: http://www.aol.com/product/firewall.adp%5B/url%5D BTW, prior to ZoneAlarm 5.1, there were problems with AOL. If your ZoneAlarm is new, there shouldn’t be any issues with AOL.

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