Article Category: Troubleshooting
Article Date: 07-24-2008

Are Skype and ZoneAlarm Compatible?

The short answer is yes. If you are using the popular firewall software called ZoneAlarm it will prompt you asking if it is ok for Skype to access the internet. And that's it... from that instant onward the two coexist with no problems. Unless, of course, something happens to make the two incompatible.

Here is a scenario that will render the two incompatible.

Skype, as everyone knows, is a communication system which monitors activity between you and those people you send messages to.

So let's say you send 10 messages to 10 people. Skype stores those messages in an internal database which is stored on your computer, and starts to look to see if the recipient is online and can receive it, and also if you are online at the same time. Remember, Skype delivers when you are BOTH online at the same time.

So there it is, checking back and forth, back and forth, are these 10 people online at the same time I am online, and if so then deliver and if not then skip to the next check.

So let's say you send 100 or 1,000 or 1,000,000 messages... how big do you think the database is getting and how busy do you think Skype is getting?

In other words, system resources start to get busier and busier.

That is ONE side to it. Here is another side to it that I was thinking about today.

Yes, that preamble was just to paint the picture... and the picture is a busy one on Skypes part. You have a very busy system which is hogging resources, but not just any type of resources, there are 2 parts to it -> 1) internal processing and 2) internet communications.

Now here is the interesting part. If you have a firewall in the picture, let's say ZoneAlarm for example, what do you think it (ZoneAlarm) will do when it sees one of the programs that have been granted access to the internet start to do a polling type algorithm which is flooding your internet connection?

Care to guess?

It will shut your internet transmissions down. It won't just shut down Skype. It will shut down your entire internet connection. NONE of your programs will be able to access the internet. You will go dark.

Pretty, isn't it? Why does it do that? I'm not sure exactly but I can make an educated guess. I think it gets confused over the fact you gave permission to a program to access the internet at will and then that program floods the bandwidth... it gets confused and doesn't know what to do so it shuts EVERYTHING down thinking that there MUST be a flaw somewhere in it's role of BIG PROTECTOR.

So beware... broadcasting to strangers can and will render Skype and ZoneAlarm incompatible.

The moral of this story is do not broadcast thousands of messages to strangers... use the software properly, i.e. via Add Contacts, because we know how to get around this issue.

One final request... ZoneAlarm is only one of many firewall products being used... if you have experience with any others please send those stories to admin@messagemagic.net so we can let our members know.

Here is a comment posted by a member on the topic:

Comment:
Not directly relevant to MM or Skype, but on the subject of ZoneAlarm, if anyone has just had a problem on a Windows XP system where they could no longer use Firefox or Flock to browse the web, the culprit is last weekend's (July 2008) Windows Update of the Malicious Software Removal tool.

Perhaps ZoneAlarm is doing so well in building market share that Microsoft felt the need to sabotage them in this manner. Very annoying.

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