ZoneAlarm and SBC problem

I have been using ZoneAlarm Pro or Basic for about 3 months. I've NEVER had a problem with my DSL provider in this time. However, chaslang had to help me look at all the UDP/pings I was getting from Ameritech. ZoneAlarm blocked them and I finally decided it wasn't a battle worth fighting since everything worked well.

This past month, I moved my service with SBC to another phone number/city, only to receive repeated phone calls, emails, and postcards from them saying I'm set up, but according to their records, I'm not using the service. Figuring it had something to do with ZA, I just ignored it. Until yesterday, when I can no longer use the internet at all. Two different tech guys "Chip" and "Kevin" helped me to fix the problem. Kevin finally asked me to disable my spyware/adware protections and the firewalls. I refused. I could see where this was going.

Then he asked me to Start-Run-cmd and then type in ping yahoo.com ....yeah, as soon as he asked me to type ping, I knew it was related to ZoneAlarm. He assured me that disabling ZA was the only way to "secure" my connectivity and they don't use the information in anyway. Um, I thought, "which information is he referring to". I didn't say anything about information.

If I disable my firewall protection, I can connect to the internet using FF or IE. But if I enable ZA, I cannot connect. SBC has assured me the UDP/pings I've been seeing are from my computer to "ensure" I'm connected. When I explained the pings come FROM SBC/AMERITECH... he gave me some song and dance about websites sending them, etc.

So what do I do? I'm locked into a 2 year contract with these snakes, and after 3 months of successful surfing using both ZA and SBC, I can no longer connect based on something they have done to the connectivity.

Any suggestions?

I run Windows XP, FF browser, currently no firewall, DSL connection through Speed Stream DSL modem.

 

Shameless kick with some additional information:

I tried to uninstall and then reinstall ZoneAlarm basic. Was able to surf for about 15 minutes last night. On awakening this morning, I find the system down again...unable to connect to the internet without disabling ZoneAlarm. And even with ZA disabled, I am unable to load AVG updates from yesterday (nor am I getting an alert from AVG that there was an update available).

SBC called again last night while I was out leaving a message that I had to register the product...we've already done that, did it again over the phone yesteday with Tech Support, and now the system still doesn't work.

I will never renew this contract with these outsource masters, but have to make do for 18 more months. Any ideas?

 

Hi Allycat, this might not be much help, but I've been having some problems with my Zone Alarm Firewall lately, so much to the point that I uninstalled it completely. You might want to consider downloading another firewall and see if that fixes the problem, at least that way you would know if its SBC or Zone Alarm that is causing your connectivity problem in the first place. The one I switched to is located at http://www.kerio.com/kerio.html and if you look under firewalls in the download section here at MG you'll also find a ton. Good Luck!

P.S. Contracts suck!

 

Sudz, I had a really hard time figuring out Outpost and it ended up not solving my problem. Still couldn't connect. So I wrote to ZA and they assured me that I just needed to uninstall ZA and reinstall it. I'd already tried that, but decided to give it another go. Wouldn't install because it said TrueVector was running and it couldn't shut it down. I tried everything to stop this program, but nothing worked. Eventually, it locked up my system and I couldn't even hard reboot it. Ended up UNPLUGGING IT FROM THE WALL to unfreeze it! So is that a cement-wall reboot?

Anyway, I finally installed ZA in safe mode and now ZA works, but I still couldn't connect to the internet. FF wasn't added to the list of programs, but even adding that didn't fix it. Basically, a blue box appeared in the lower right hand corner about 5 minutes later asking if I wanted to allow outgoing access to the IP addy I recognized for SBC. Once I allowed that, I had internet access.

But if my computer sits idle for any length of time, I basically have to punch buttons until that blue box appears so I can "allow" it and connect to the internet. I'm still convinced this has something to do with SBC and will be counting the months until I can rip up that *&^%! contract and find someone else for DSL.

Now I want a router and I hear installing those with SBC on the line is a real bear.