Zone Alarm Firewall Update Time Again

It's time for another major Zone Alarm program update.

Step-by-step instructions - very little thinking required.

To update:

Either say update now when the notice comes up or

Open Zone Alarm
Click on Overview, Preferences, Check for Updates and then okay when notice pops up.
Your browser will open to the update page.
On the right side of the page, click on Zone Alarm Firewall Update.
Save the file to a location of your choice on your hard drive, or to
My Documents\Program Archives\Zone Alarm (or something like that)
Close your browser

Run the program/file you downloaded.
Installation - Next
Type your name if there is nothing in the Name field, and un-check the 2 checked boxes and Next.
Check Upgrade if it is not already checked off. - Next.
Check off "I accept...", - Install.
.... wait ...
Zone Alarm Registration Survey - fill it out.
Installation is complete. Do you want to start Zone Alarm now? - Yes.
A Special Offer From Zone Alarm - No Thanks
Configuration Wizard - Scan My Computer - Next.
Scanning Is Complete. Zone Alarm is ready to protect you. - Finish.
Restart your computer to finish - ok.
... After restart:
Zone Alarm - Getting Started - click on Finish
X to close Zone Alarm.
Done.

Firefox 2.0.0.7 and Vista and Firewalls

UPDATE
Zone Alarm has since fixed whatever bugs were it in that conflicted with Firefox and Thunderbird in Vista. No more crashes and freezes. Things work fine now.

UPDATE
If you are using Windows Vista, Zone Alarm and Firefox, and you can't connect to the Internet with Firefox (but you can with other programs), and Zone Alarm is not letting you configure Firefox, uninstall Zone Alarm and re-install it. This should fix the problem.


Original post:
There is a problem with the latest version of Firefox with some firewalls if you are using Windows Vista. The problem is that you can't connect with Firefox - the firewall blocks it and won't let you configure the controls to allow Firefox access. For a Norton firewall, you should be able to purge your firewall's program list, then do a scan for programs and it should work again. For Zone Alarm, it is a different matter.

Zone Alarm does not like Firefox 2.0.0.7 in Windows Vista. It won't even let you add Firefox to the program list (if you have removed it to try to fix this problem). As a temporary work around, turn the Program Control off in Zone Alarm.

I'm going to try to totally uninstall Zone Alarm and re-install it to see if this works.