I don't know if I should allow programs to act as servers.

Help for v2
1

I don’t know how to answer that question. What are the rules I should follow in giving permission? Does Firefox need to be one, in order to work? Any that I should allow? I don’t even know what a server is, and I can’t find out in the FAQs or Help sections. ???

Please help.

Thanks.

Laurie

2

What option is that? I have firefox as well but have never been asked if it should be allowed to act as a server…

3

Hi Laurie,

I just asked about this and was referred to this thread:

https://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,1563.0.html

Basically, I was lead to understand that this is normal Firefox behavior and can’t lead to any security risks in the absence of any Network Monitor rules allowing TCP/UDP connections from the outside (and there are none unless you make them).

4

The strange thing is that Firefox asks you both to “connect” and to “act as server”, and it won’t work unless you allow both. But IE and Opera need only to “connect”, they don’t even ask to act as servers. ??? Meh Opera beats Firefox hands down. :-X

But you shouldn’t worry, other programs ask for this too, maybe you AV’s email scanner and such. Pay attention to whether the program asking for whatever permission is trustworthy, and maybe to the parent application as well. In case of doubt deny and see if anything stops working; either deselect the remember option when denying the first time, or leave it checked but edit the rule created in case a legit program stops working.

5

https://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,6908.msg50626.html#msg50626
This one might help too.
Not using proxy myself I disabled tcp loopback, all my browser rules are out only.
Be very careful what you deny. I work on the principal if I know both programs I allow.
On occasion I might have 3+ programs running and 4+ tabs open, - open another tab and I’ll get an alert that one of the programs wants to do the lambada with firefox. Knowing both are safe I allow without remember. If I deny, then Firefox will lose connection requiring firefox to be restarted.
Be very careful of denying svchost.exe as it will be goodbye connection requiring restarts.
At the moment I have 6 firefox rules (different parents)
Here’s a link on ole warnings
https://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,4728.msg35532.html#msg35532

Regards
Sullo

6

Thanks so much to all of you. I had to ditch ZoneAlarm because it was interfering with my anti-virus and it is the only firewall I have ever used. I will allow FireFox to be a server, since it seems I need to. I think I only had two ‘servers’ allowed in ZA; my anti-virus and that svchost thing.

I really appreciate the time you took to give me links to other discussions. I tried to search and find some on my own and wasn’t successful. Mostly, I don’t understand what is being bandied about in them, but I got the idea that this is OK to do.

(:CLP)

Laurie