I recently installed a Norton firewall on my system, now when I open Poser 4, the firewall instruct me that Poser is trying to connect to the Internet and that the firewall is blocking it. I get tired of permitting the access, why is Poser doing it and is it safe to allow the Program to do this, I think I read somewhere that some programas do not work well if you don't let them " correspond" with the website they are trying to acess.

It is an internal check to see if multiple copies are running on a network with a single serial number. I have my firewall set to block it as a default & haven't had any problems with running poser.

Poser also updates the web links found in the Help menu. That would explain why my copy of Poser 4 has the DAZ Platinum club listed among other sites that didn't exist a few years ago.

Always heard it was an internal network check for serials, which would explain why it works fine even if you block the outgoing connection at the firewall. FWIW, my weblinks still have Zygote listed. I recall them being updated only when I installed the 4.03 update. I wonder if some DAZ installs are updating them?

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Feel free to "Block All", I have never had a problem. You can always chang the permissions if you feel neccesary. I block everything until I find I NEED to allow something to connect. Can never be too safe with cable.

Thanks for the help and you are right I got 38 viruses with my cable connection wich is why I got the firewall. I now need to find out how to block it and avoid the annoying pop ups.

There is a little tick box in the Norton Firewall pop-up that says something like "Always apply this rule for this application". (I don't remember the exact wording, Norton is on the home PC and I'm at the office...) Tick that one, and Norton will not annoy you with the pop-up everytime Poser opens. If yoy need to change the setting later, it's easily done by opening Norton.

You can block Poser with your firewall, it does not need to have access to the internet. * Poser also updates the web links found in the Help menu. That would explain why my copy of Poser 4 has the DAZ Platinum club listed among other sites that didn't exist a few years ago.* Daz does not update the weblinks via Internet, they are included in the exe files when you install a new DAZ item. If you install DAZ items to a temp folder instead into Poser you could see that it creates a folder called Weblinks that contain links to DAZ website.

Every organisation rests upon a mountain of secrets ~ Julian Assange

If you get viruses, you need an antivirus program. Oh, so DAZ gets sneaky and updates the web links when you install their products? I never would have guessed that. Let's not forget that Poser, and several other apps, will search your network for a printer. If the computer hosting the printer is not turned on, then Poser (and those other apps) won't load.

Thanks kelderek I managed to figure that when I read the pop up carefully, Peter I did have Norton antivirus installed but all it did was tell me I was infected and that it was unable to repair it, I could not quarentine a couple of them so I deleted them and of course it messed up my computer being in the system 32 folder; finally I reformatted my system, installed a firewall with its antivirus and had not have any problems except weekly warnings that someone has been trying to access my ports. The only glitch is that I have not been able to do a complete scan because Norton freezes, I have done it through folders. One more thing if you back up your computer you still need to install all your Poser products( Victoria, Michael etc) from the original cd or download or you could use the back up like the ones Roxio does. I have on my D drive a copy of my previous Runtime folder.

Whoa, you either have some new problems or some problems that persist. What does Norton tell you when it freezes? Have you done all your Live Updates? Do you have the right version for your operating system?

Oh, so DAZ gets sneaky and updates the web links when you install their products? I never would have guessed that. No, they don't get sneaky. Everyone can create a Weblinks folder and include their own links, that's not a big thing. And it does not happen while you are online but when you install a new item. It just puts the content of the Weblinks folder into it's destination folder within Poser as well as it puts characters and props in their librarie folders.

Every organisation rests upon a mountain of secrets ~ Julian Assange

Peter, Norton just stays at let say 13405 files scanned and it would not move, sometimes is more files sometimes is less, I only managed to do it once with the Norton antivirus that came with System works but after that I have been unsucessful with both versions of Antivirus ( The one with system works and the one with the firewall) The funny thing is that I have been able to do it with the free online scan called Housecall from the makers of Penicillin. They were the ones that detected the viruses. One more thing when I cancel my scan my cpu keeps working at 100% even if I ctrl-alt-delete and end task; I need to reboot.

Goido, this gets pretty confusing. You should have only ONE version of Norton Antivirus on your computer. Now let's get down to business: 1.) What operating system do you have? 2.) Which Norton programs do you have, and what versions? That is a good place to start.

I have Windows 2000 Pro. I have Internet security by Norton, it is a firewall with NAV. I did not reinstall System works with its Antivirus because I had the one that came with the firewall, the people that built the computer advised me to only install the antivirus ( I already have itout of the firewall) Windoctor and system monitor, they did not like Norton protected bin or clean sweep. Right now I only have the firewall and its antivirus connected. Internet security is 2003.

I now need to find out how to block it and avoid the annoying pop ups There's a file called 'hosts' on your machine. IN w95/98/ME it's in C:windows, on XP, NT and 2K it's somewhere under C:windowssystem32 -- I don't remember where. It's a text file. It's your internal DNS, actually. You can add any domain name here and give it an IP address and windows won't ask any DNS for that domain name. You should see one called 'localhost' that points at 127.0.0.1. That's your loopback address. Using the same format, add any popup server or adserver (check image properties) you run across and give in the same IP address. Eventually every offsite hosted banner you run across, popup or not, will be replaced with a broken image. Broken images look terrible, but they look better than 'Shoot the monkey and win a million dollars' Java crap.

Thanks for the info. It seems that now that my firewall is working, I get lots of people probing my computer from all ove the world, something called a subseven Trojan horse. In this week 13 attacks. I know that some of them are harmless but still worries me.

Nods I've actually thought about the possibility of buindilg something called 'AntiNic', kinda of like AlterNic was in the 90s. The idea behind AntiNic would be to list off sites known to sponsor spam, popups, adhosting and so on and run like a DNS, automatically replacing their IP adresses with a loopback or a dud address. Then people could simply set it up as their primary DNS with their ISP or other DNS as secondary DNSes and thereafter every time they got a popup or an inline banner that was from a lister server they would be unable to resolve DNS on specifically those domains. B^)

Sounds great! But who are these people, are they really trying to infect my computer? This are people in countries I do not know or have visited sites.

No, they are trying to infect your mind with the urge to visit their websites and hopefully purchase something. To that end some of them are willing to put adware on your machine, and most of them just stick to spam and popups. Adware does assorted things. Sometimes it tracks where you go online and uploads that data (using the bandwidth you pay for) to gather neilsen-style statistics (information you don't get paid for). Sometimes it hijacks your web browser and gives you popups which, in turn, place a cokie on your machine to track how often you have seen their popups and clicked on them and so on. Sounds like you need to download and rune Ad-Aware, to me. That's probably where most outside 'attacks' or attempted handshakes are coming from.

Wow! This is a great explanation of what is going on with all the alerts I keep getting.I guess I am a bit paranoid since I got infected with 38 viruses when I got my always on high speed connection. I had to reformat my computer because Norton Antivirus all it did was advise me that my box was infected and that it was unable to repair or quarantine.