Recently, a subscriber wrote me this week to report problems with Trend Micro’s PC-cillin Internet Security and Internet Explorer 7.
I had PC-cillin internet security 6 on my computer so when I downloaded IE7 I could not get back on the internet. I e-mailed trend micro support about the problem. They e-mailed back with an upgrade site for internet security 7. Problem solved.
I wrote back to ask whether he meant that he couldn’t browse web sites but that his email program worked, or that neither worked and he had to email from a different computer.
He responded:
It completely blocked me from getting to the internet. If I uninstalled it then I could log on . Otherwise everything else was ok.
I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem. If you’ve had it, please write me and let me that you had the problem and know how you solved it.
At this point, I think he might have fallen into one of the traps that firewall programs often set for the unwary…
Most firewall programs that monitor the outbound connection attempts from our computers (and all good firewall programs do this) will give us a warning when a program on our computer tries to access the Internet.
The warning popup often includes a checkbox that allows us to select “Don’t ask me again.”
Unfortunately, often this turns off the warning system for ANY program trying to get to the Internet, not just that particular program. Subsequently, the firewall program blocks the attempt to communicate with the Internet, but we don’t know the attempt was made or blocked.
The other important thing to know is that the firewall programs actually recognize that a new version of a previously approved program is a “different program” than the one we approved.
If we have not clicked the checkbox “Don’t ask me again…”, then we get the warning that our newly updated program has attempted to connect to the Internet. We can say “OK” and “Remember this answer” and everything is fine.
But, if we had clicked the “Don’t ask me again…” box some time in the past, we don’t know what happened — just that our new program doesn’t work.
In this particular case, since the IE7 update replaced so many files in Windows and, also, that IE7 is used as an embedded web browser in Outlook Express (so OE can show HTML-formatted emails), this would also explain why his email program wasn’t working.
So, the bottom line is: If you install a new program or an update/upgrade that needs to access the Internet, and if it doesn’t work, check your firewall settings. You should be able to find an entry under a section with a title something like “Programs” or “Applications” that you can change or delete to solve the problem.
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