Anyone a firewall expert, I have used Norton Firewall for 2 years now and never had this happen before, I had to reinstall everything on my computer yesterday (3rd time this year :( ) and now everything seems fine except NF always blocks all the email programs I try... not only that, but after I try to get my mail the firewall seems to go down, the icons for it disapear from the taskbar and the "Status" - states it is down... although I can still use all other internet programs...

Anyone know a solution... I want my email... [img]smile.gif[/img]

<span style="color: lightblue">I haven't noticed anything like that, myself... but I've had other problems with it, such as it being intrusive when it doesn't load. You may want to try a different Firewall - Nortons is very system intensive, and the alternatives reportedly do a better job.

Try clicking on the icon in the taskbar (before it disapears) and then have a look around to make sure everything's as it should and make sure the anti-spam section isn't stopping you recieving e-mails etc. (assuming you've got the latest Norton)

thats wierd indeed. what is your email program are you using? outlook?

Outlook express and Thunderbird, both are stopped.

What other firewalls are there... preferably cheap or free... [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color=cccccc>Norton is the king of the hill.
We see you are using OE, and T-bird.
What is your OS?
Is your Norton configured, updated, and compatible with your current OS? Norton updates frequently.

Technically speaking, this has the immediate sound of OS in-compatibility. Ensure your OS is completely updated, along with Norton.

From a home user stand point, your sequence should be as follows.
New OS install. OS update. Driver update. Peripherals update. Norton Install, Norton update.

Other's on the market. If you are employed, check with your employer for employee take home protection.
The most well known free one comes from Zone Labs, and is called Zone Alarm. You will want to research the plain 'Zone-Alarm' or their upgrade from the two major players, to their 'Pro' version. Don't hold me to their upgrade package, I have not used it.
There are others but, I have no personal experience with them. </font>

I have the same problem with zonealarm, the only way I can fix it is to shut down the fire wall, then start me browser, then re-start the firewall.

Stormy if you are looking at your emails on an internet site then you can change that sites security settings inside the Zone Alarm control center. Maybe that would help.

Call me crazy, but Ilearned my lesson with Norton and all the other garbage out there years ago. It gave me so much trouble. Now I just use the protection in the browser (Firefox) and do very little downloading.

I find the Windows Firewall in SP2 to be quite serviceable when coupled with a NAT Router.

I used to use Norton Firewall previous to SP2 though, and it's rather odd that it's giving you some grief. It's usually a set and forget program.

You did mention that you re-installed your OS. Perhaps you may have gotten a hold of a virus/worm prior to you getting your firewall installed. I went through the very same thing sometime ago after a re-install. I would automatically head over and grab SP1 (SP2 wasn't available at the time) and a friendly little worm would piggy back along with the download.

Try running NAV, and then try an on-line scanner as well. I noticed that when I had the same problem, NAV didn't pick up the worm but the on-line scanner did.