I am hoping that someone here might be able to help me out.

I recently had to change from Zone Alarm Free to Outpost Free and am glad that I had to. Outpost seems to be a lot more comprehensive and more customisable.

However, Outpost is not masking my ports as 'stealth'; instead they are all reporting as 'closed', apart from three that my ISP is marking as stealth (21, 23 & 80). This is a little annoying as despite Zone Alarm's shortcomings, my ports always reported as being in 'stealth' mode while I used that program. I checked this here.

I have checked the box in 'Firewall Mode' to stealth as opposed to 'normal'. I would have thought that this would have been the candidate. I have disallowed all ICMP settings, no success; and have double checked my 'global settings' to untick anything that could be sending the closed message to grc.com.
(I have since downloaded the trial version of Outpost Pro, to only receive the same results)

I am behind a NATed router and run XP SP2 along with AVG and resident Spybot.
If you need any more info, do not hesitate to ask.

Thanks in advance.

Click to view attachment Paddy

First let me tell you about that link at GSF (if you still haven't seen it) and that special one. Please give me some time I'll check up for answers of your problem Paddy, kay?



Reminds me of my decision lot of years ago, and I haven't regreted it. But I'd to uninstall ZoneAlarm properly cause it leaves lot of settings in the registry and Windows installations which have side effects on installations of other firewalls.



Which ports are you talking Paddy? All or only some of them are not appearing as 'stealth'?



I wouldn't disallow ICMP cause some providers need ICMP to check if the IPs are still alive. It's mostely used for flatrates and any kinds of DSL connections. Should be set to incoming ICMP signals like a ping command.



I only can repeat it Paddy: Please give me some time to check for answers, kay ;)?

Regards
B. Udo

Oh, I never explained why I had to un-install Zone Alarm: I downloaded the 15 day trial of the pro version and went to install it. It kept 'hanging' and my CPU usage went to 100%. The regular version never worked after that even after trying to re-install it. (I got the same 'hanging' effect)

I will check my registry for any leftover settings that Zone Alarm might have left on my system and delete them if I find any.

Apart from 21, 23 & 80 ALL ports between 1 & 1056 are appearing as 'closed'.

I have reset my ICMP as you suggested to the default settings.

No hurry, I have been trying to figure this out for weeks now, a few more would not make any difference!

:thumbup:

I can see this is quite a late reply,.. but,....the router is being tested, not the firewall,.. you would need to check the settings in the router for "Unsolicited replies", there is normally a setting within the router to block any replies.
Edit:- In my router this is:- "Discard PING from WAN side"

Personally i'd recommend you use a better firewall. For the best protection either Jetico or Comodo are your best options.
Some other free options include-
Sygate
Kerio
Filseclab

Me again farmerlee

How do you explain your reply here with your one about ZA as a "good" firewall:

Click to view attachment

BU

Well i assumed he must have had a reason for ditching ZA so i decided not to suggest he switch back.