Zone Alarm

[PrivateSniper]

Hey there, I have been using Zone Alarm Pro without problems for absolutely ages - I know alot of people would claim it's bugged but i've failed to see any indication of this (i think users just need to learn how to use it ) anyway my problem is this, whenever uTorrent.exe is running I periodically get a message from Zone Alarm saying True Vector service is not currently running, however if i wait a few moments this will correct itself.. now I have my PC running days on end at times and if this happened before I would have noticed it.

I would submit a ticket to Zone Labs but i dont think the fault is at their end (other than TV being a little unstable to allow this to happen) but the problem is clearly something that uT is doing is causing this to happen.. can i please get some feedback from uT dev's please

[Ultima]

Still sounds to me like TrueVector being its usual, stupid self. I've never had that happen to me when using ZoneAlarm, and µTorrent's never caused any other application/service to fail while running. Might be because ZA can't handle connections or something and simply crashes, who knows.

[PrivateSniper]

Well it never happened on any other torrent program, doesn't do it on Blizzards torrent program or anything else, it's got to be a problem with uT - i think it's laughable you think it's not a problem with your software so "must be ZA's fault" i've used ZA fine for years - fair enough it's bugged in that your program is somehow causing it to fail, now there is 2 sides to this story - i'll take it up with ZA themselves, but it's also something you's should look into..

[Ultima]

Notice how I never said the possibility wasn't there that it could be caused by µTorrent. Simply saying my opinion on one side of the story doesn't mean I totally reject the other side of the story, it just means I'm leaning more toward ZoneAlarm being the problematic software in question.

And notice how I said I never had issues with ZoneAlarm before. FWIW, I've used ZoneAlarm since 3.x up to 6.0.x. Yes, that's a good four years of experience with ZoneAlarm; I know full well how it works with µTorrent, and have even created a guide for when I was still using it. I'm not one of those people you think "just need to learn how to use it" -- that's to say, I'm not just an outsider looking in and bashing on ZoneAlarm, only looking to defend µTorrent. I have used ZoneAlarm for an EXTENSIVE period of time, and know that it may work at times for some people, but behave stupidly at other times. There have been enough posts regarding issues with ZoneAlarm, even with my help, a few months back. In more concise terms, as Firon might put it, ZoneAlarm is temperamental. Also, the early life of the 6.5.x branch of ZoneAlarm (which I've never used) was known to be buggy, especially with P2P applications. This could always be a new issue brought about in the newer builds, but I can't say with certainty, since I switched after 6.0.x.

So yeah, I'm not seeing what's so laughable about what I said.

[PrivateSniper]

well regardless of opinions of what software/people are to blame etc, how about getting the problem fixed or at least looking into it

[Ultima]

Telling us to get the problem fixed is placing the blame on us, but whatever. Anyway, ludde hasn't been available lately, so I wouldn't be able to tell him to look into it right now anyway (though with a lack of any concrete information, I wouldn't expect that he'd be able to pull a magic fix out of thin air anyway)... Really, I don't know what would be considered concrete information for something like this, but I doubt the above is enough to be able to figure anything out anyway.

[PrivateSniper]

of course, you can't take one persons word for the problem being at your end, as i say i will also take it up with zone alarm but them being a big, profitable and probably american (or worse canadian) company (no offense to the people of the coutries) will probably give a generic tough luck message, however as i say yours is the only torrent program in which this is an issue (and i have used a great many) therefor i feel asking yourselves to have a look is not unreasonable just maybe my original wording of the issue.. thanks for at least taking the time to reply so quickly i do hope this is something your able to fix

[Ultima]

Actually, ZoneAlarm is owned by Check Point Software, which, IINM, is Israeli, but yeah

[matrix452]

Hey I'm actually getting the same thing. The true vector service crashes periodically. I'm using the latest free version of Zonealarm. I'm fairly positive it's the interaction with µtorrent since it's the last program I've installed and it started doing it shortly after.

[PrivateSniper]

does yours start back up again after a few seconds like mine did? i'm not too bothered now since installing xp 64 i dont think ZA works on it, but never-the-less it is a problem somewhere

[matrix452]

Well it tells me it's crashed but i look into my task manager and it's still running. it mostly happens when i walk away from my computer for a while i come back to it telling me the true vector has crashed.

[PrivateSniper]

yea it usually says it's crashed, then if you open ZA main screen after a few seconds it loads back again - which is not really very reassuring lol

[doublehaze]

I'm also experiencing this issue. I've used zone alarm for years and have only seen it happen maybe twice until a month or so ago when it started happening multiple times per day.

Strange because I've had the same version of zone alarm and utorrent for longer than a month. I upgraded to the latest version of zone alarm today but it didn't fix the problem.

Believe me, I love utorrent and am not placing the blame on anyone. Just wanted to weigh in on this.

Specs:

utorrent 1.6

zone alarm pro 6.5.737.000

Realtek RTL8169/8100 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC

SMC 7004VBR router

[achoon]

Yes, I'm having the same issue with Utorrent and ZoneAlarm. True vector security service crashes periodically and after a few seconds it loads back again

Specs:

utorrent 1.6

zone alarm pro 6.5.737.000

[µtorrent-Guest]

achoon

then get rid of ZA.

from a logical point of view it's just useless if you have windows xp and its "firewall"!

[PrivateSniper]

apart from the fact that i wouldn't trust microsoft to make security if they were the last designer left on the planet

[Ultima]

Semi-off-topic, but outbound security should be the last thing on your mind. For what it does (inbound security), Windows Firewall works just fine.

[matrix452]

Yea really, what does it matter what's trying to use the internet, the odd browser, utorrent, maybe a virus or two, some spyware. But really we should worry about that.

[Ultima]

Yeah, after all, malware already got into your computer, your possibly already-compromised "security" solution is your best bet for good protection.[/sarcasm]

If a thief gets into your house and burns everything, is being able to prevent the thief from getting out seriously at the top of your list of priorities?

Anyhow, regarding the issue at hand, I still haven't been able to get a hold of ludde.

[µtorrent-Guest]

"If a thief gets into your house and burns everything, is being able to prevent the thief from getting out seriously at the top of your list of priorities?"

that's a great real life analogy. Thanks for that

[matrix452]

That's not a great analogy. if a piece of malware get installed on my computer without my knowledge and tries to access the internet zonealarm will let me know that this malware tried to make a connection and i can deny it. But if you want to go with this thief thing, well if everything already burned down anyways then yes i'll make it my life's work to stop him so i can call the authorities so he can be put in jail and never do it again. But you're right this is off topic there's obviously a problem with zonealarm and utorrent co-existing. I'm just hoping real steps are being taken to fix this instead of the "it's not my program's fault it's theirs"

[µtorrent-Guest]

matrix452

no, the analogy is good

because once a piece of malware is able to run on your PC then it can (and smart ones will!!) change that your zonealarm is able to report or not.

A firewall that you want to use to filter outgoing connections but having it run on the system which connections you want to filter is from a technicle point of view sensefree!

Once malware was able to run, nothing that the system is reporting can be trusted! (not even some fancy popupwindow that "ask you for allow/deny)

Having an outgoing filter on the machine you want to secure and believing that this is with the necessary reliability possible is just snakeoil believing!

Read Microsoft himself about that (It's immutable Law No.1)

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/community/columns/security/essays/10imlaws.mspx#EBB

[Switeck]

I'll repeat this for those who haven't caught on:

Once malware was able to run, nothing that the system is reporting can be trusted!

You may have to put some trust in stuff on the system to recover the rest...but take nothing at face value!

Rootkits can come in multiple forms...from just able to hide itself to totally screwing the whole OS over and making it look like utorrent.exe is doing it.

Zone Alarm really won't help much in either regard because it only cares about stuff trying to make/receive internet connections.

[Ultima]

http://forum.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=OpenBeta&message.id=636

http://forum.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=win_za_msgs&message.id=11719

http://forum.zonelabs.com/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=win_za_msgs&message.id=14741

Is it just me, or does it strike anyone else as odd that other people are reporting the very same thing, and it doesn't only occur with µTorrent? Additionally, the first thread indicates the problem's become more widespread since 6.5.x with multiple BitTorrent clients (I say "more widespread" because it was apprarently a problem with previous of ZA versions already).

[PrivateSniper]

ok, well i personally only use your client because of it's size and, well,, it's great.. i have also tested with the BT client itself, but if there's post on Za's site fair enough.. like i said i dont use za now, since hopefully my router firewall, anti-virus + anti spyware and my technical ability shall keep me safe, nice to see that it wasn't just me though, keep up the good work and thanks for the feedback, you maybe might want to add this to the faq maybe? that za is broke? lol