To be honest I am not sure if this is a Firewall problem or not. To be honest I haven’t a clue what the problem is! Something is blocking my Skype and my SnoopFree privacy shield from connecting to the internet. Mostly they cannot connect, but to my surprise, once they did yesterday after switching my computer on in the evening. Both services are listed in the firewall but still they cannot connect. I have no other firewall that could be blocking them. I have avast antivirus but cannot imagine that to be blocking? And I have AVG-anti-spyware running but cannot imagine this to be the problem either? That’s all I have running. I have no idea what else can be the problem other than the firewall, but???
Check the logs in the “Activity” menu. Right click the list, choose “Export as HTML”, give it a name and then save the file to a folder somewhere. Open that and then find the relevant logs for those two applications. If you’re using IE, hit CTRL+F, type a search term and then click Find to jump to the relevant log. If you’re using Firefox, make sure the Status bar is visible (View → Status Bar), hit either F3 or CTRL+F, type a search term and browser will jump to immediately to the relevant log. Hit Enter to jump to the next one. If any of them have “Access Denied” noted, then you need to open the relevant ports. If any of them have components listed which need to be approved, add those to the Components menu.
Okay „maybe“ I have found the problem (?). I say “maybe”!
In Advanced Attack Detection and under Miscellaneous I had clicked on “Block all outgoing connections while booting”.
I have now un-clicked this and both services I mentioned have now connected after re-booting. I will have to wait and see if this happens each time I switch my computer on, but it’s hopeful.
However I have no idea what the purpose of this option is, or how it exactly effects the level of security (having it ticked or not)? Is my level of security now less? And surely there is not much use to it if it blocks services from working (not only during the booting phase)?
(And a note to developers: I think such things (options) are insufficiently explained)