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Thread ID: 29845	2003-02-04 07:25:00	Firewall	Hilton (293)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
118271	2003-02-04 07:25:00	How do I configure my Zone Alarm Pro firewall to block transmission of personal information. My web browser releases information about the site I last visited to other web sites.	Hilton (293)
118272	2003-02-04 10:45:00	I doubt that any firewall will be able to stop that info. About the only way I know that you can stop transmitting that type of info is to disable cookies. But, I wouldn't do it for this particular site though ;)	Gorela (901)
118273	2003-02-04 10:49:00	Hmmm .... this all depends upon what version of ZA Pro you are using. Reading the release history (download.zonelabs.com) on the different versions, it appears that privacy protection was introduced in version 3.x. If you have version 3.x pdf user manuals can be downloaded here (www.zonelabs.com)	Jen C (20)
118274	2003-02-04 10:59:00	Hey Jen, The privacy measures you mention are the blocking of cookies. Blocking with Zone Alarm has a number of levels which appear VERY similar to what most browsers will do. Block all cookies. Quite a few sites won't download on that setting. Block cookies to third party sites. Upsets the sales team here though. And accept all cookies. The first two give you a nice wee warning about "Privacy Settings have affected this Site". Does that mean that it will get a complex? :p	Gorela (901)
118275	2003-02-05 03:03:00	Thanks for your replies dudes. I had v2.6 & downloaded v3.1 & had nothing but trouble. Went back to v2.6. Downloaded v3.5 which made my computer totally safe (?). No wonder because I can`t go to half my sites & the ones it does take forever to load even to reply to this took 20 mins. Or it tells me `We don`t allow downloads where we can`t track the site you came from (blank referrals). Could you help me with some settings or shall I go back to v2.6.	Hilton (293)
118276	2003-02-05 03:41:00	I'm a bit confused. Do you want to enable cookies or do you want to disable them? In the Zone Alarm Privacy settings you can tell it to block cookies, disable pop-up windows and set a time limit on downloaded images. At maximum settings, as you seem to have discovered, a lot of sites won't let you access them (the referrals bit). You can ease the restrictions, but then of course you will be advertising where you have been. In Mozilla you can actually set individual restrictions for each site. So I could enable cookies for this site, but not accept them for say PC World's site. The best bet would be to check your IE settings in the tools area and see if you can set-up a similar thing in it. If so, you could then disable the Privacy settings in Zone Alarm. From memory you can't put individual policy settings in Zone Alarm for cookies. It's all or nothing. I think with IE you can choose certain sites that you consider to be "safe" and then enable lower restrictions on things like java, et al. Hope this helps :)	Gorela (901)
118277	2003-02-05 06:41:00	Hi. I'm a privacy nut, so this is a good question. A good firewall will allow you to block the 'referrer' field. I can't say if ZA can do this cause I've been too lazy to try it out - one day! I believe Norton's Internet Security programme will allow you to do this, as it's based on the engine of my own firewall, the extinct AtGuard. The following is an extract from the help files: When you click a link to a web page, your browser makes a quick note of what page you are currently viewing. When it sends the request for the new page, it passes that information on to the new server. That allows web servers that you visit to know where you've just been, which is information that you might prefer to keep to yourself. When referer fields are permitted, your browser tells a web server that you are visiting that you clicked a link to get to them. It also tells the server what page it was that you were just visiting. When referer fields are blocked, however, the web server that you are getting a page from has no more information than if you just typed the URL into your browser or selected it from your bookmarks. For example, a web page may present an advertisement by including instructions for the browser to request the advertisement from a third-party site. As part of your browser's request for the advertisement, it provides information to the advertising site about the identity of the site you visited that triggered the request. This information is passed in a referer field in the "HTTP GET" header (which the browser uses to make the request). There are three ways to handle requests for referral information: Permit Allows your browser to reveal the URL of the page that triggered the request for data. Block Prevents your browser from telling a site the URL of the page you were visiting that triggered the request for data. Reply Directs your browser to insert a specific string in place of the referral data that is usually sent in the refer field. Troubleshooting Tip In rare cases, blocking a Referer field or substituting a Referer Reply may make it impossible to link to pages within a web site. A web site may use the Referer field to set criteria for whether pages can link to its server. For example, suppose the BeBop Concert Hall web site provides concert reviews and sells tickets at its site. The BeBop site may not want to allow the web pages of rival ticket agencies to provide links to the concert review pages at the BeBop site. In this case, the BeBop site can check the Referer field to determine whether it contains a URL within the BeBop site. If it doesn't—meaning that the link came from a page outside the BeBop site—then the BeBop web server can be configured to refuse to respond to the server request. The way you can manually get around this referrer problem, is to open another browser window... (ctrl-n - you can set your browser to open the new window as a blank page and not another copy of the current open page - Netscape 7 is even better in it's options, by giving you the option of opening a blank 'tab' as well. Go Netscape!)... then type or paste in the new URL you wish to visit - the site won't HTTP GET any info from your previous site.	Greg S (201)
118278	2003-02-06 00:11:00	Thanks everyone for your help. I`ve uninstalled v3.5 and gone back to v2.6. Ok I haven`t got 100% browser privacy but everything else works. The 3.5 version slowed my computer down to slower than a crawl. Everything was affected it took me minutes to type a login. Press a key and wait 2-3 mins for it to appear on the screen and then the same for the next letter. Hopeless.	Hilton (293)
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