Problems With Configuring Zone Alarm

Hey people, I'm having trouble configuring Zone Alarm. In BitTorrent, in the top right of the window, it says "Downloads may be slow, Probably firewalled/NAted

In Zone Alarm, (the basic firewall version) I have configured bittorrent.exe in the program control section to allow it to access the internet. I have also ticked all the boxes in the Access and Server sections. the probelm is, how do I actually configure bitTorrent in Zone Alarm for Zone Alarm to recognise that BitTorrent is trying to ac as a server as in the alerts and logs section, there is a huge list of attempts by BitTorrent to access the internet blocked. And also, in the top right of the Zone Alarm window, the bittorrent icon keeps on flashing in "programs" and it says "bittorrent.exe blocked from listening to ports: TCP 1024. Zone alarm is recognising each attempt by bittorrent as a security alert, but how do i configure it properly to recognise Bittorrent as a server??

 

you need to tell ZA what port your bt client is using.

 

yes but how? That's what i'm confues about? I've tried the ZA help topics but they aren't very helpful and there isn;t much relation between the instructions to do something and the ZA Windows....

 

i don't run ZA so i don't know specifically. but every firewall app has a place where you can tell it specifically what port (number) and type (UDP, TCP) to open up. you just gotta hunt around and find it.

 

found it drumfu. got it, thanks. It was in a window called "Proxy Server". I should have messed around more before posting this....

 

Here's how to open ports in ZoneAlarm:

In the Firewall window, go to the Main tab. Choose the zone that ZoneAlarm is currently configured to (Internet or Trusted), and click Custom.

Scroll if needed until you find the option "Allow incoming TCP ports" (or UDP, if you need UDP). Select this option and enter the port number (or numbers) that you wish to open.

 

I've tried Zone Alarm and I don't suggest it. Seems like overkill to me. You could try a combination of Avast Pro and Windows Firewall and if you're using a router then it also has a built in firewall, hopefully. That should do it.

My setup has stopped many intrusions and I'm happy with it. My Belkin Pre-N router also logs attempts at accessing my wireless so that's a bonus.

Avast has some sort of intrusion detection as well so it's a great anti-virus program.

I find windows firewall to be pretty good.

Wow microsoft something useful for a change.

 

The reason I use ZoneAlarm and not the Windows firewall is because ZoneAlarm switches on the fly between open and stealth modes, depending on the network I'm connected to. The Windows firewall has no ability to do that.

I bet that many full-fledged firewalls can do it, not just ZoneAlarm, but ZoneAlarm was the first thing I tried and so far it works quite nice and doesn't bug me, so I'm sticking to it for the time being.