Thank you IBN and Peddant for your posts. I have already expressed my apology for being such a novice on firewalls. But am eager to learn to the extent a non-techie can, from the gurus here
Tedster had advised "ensure the ports that trendmicro uses are open in zonealarm". In my previous response, I had requested for guidance as to how to ensure that. If anybody could enlighten me, I shall be grateful. In my original post, I had mentioned that my ZA is
FREE 6.5. I am surmising now that probably such advanced features like port synchronisation are available only in ZA Pro version. Would like to know whether my logic is right or not.
Even if others are able to run TrendMicro online with ZA in their systems, it may not be so for everyone. Is it likely that settings in ZA Pro are tweakable, which IBN and Peddant have adjusted? I am wondering whether
ZA Free can be so configured to enable TrendMicro compatibility. Any instruction would be highly appreciated.
Peddant, I am responding to your advice about IE cache clearance. I am a bit paranoid about IE's cache, and clean up several times a day. In fact, yesterday, after installing ZA Free, I tried TrendMicro Housecall several times ... both in IE (after using CCleaner to wipe off all junk caches, with TrendMicro url in trusted zone, i.e., ActiveX and scripting enabled), and also in Firefox (using the alternative Java kernel).
I have been also interacting in the ZoneLabs Forum (
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=36137) and the Gurus there have instructed me to reset ZA database ... very kindly I have been given a set of step-by-step instructions, and when I am a bit free, am going to try it. Hope it works!
Although my post has become a bit longish, I am trying to provide as much relevant info as possible. Here's a bit about my Java settings :-
Just opened the "Applet Cache Viewer" from Java ControlPanel > Temp Files Settings ... "Enable caching" is checked. Yesterday, I tried TrendMicro scan from both their International site as well as European site. The Cache viewer clearly shows two sets of files (from both the sites) - Class & Jar both. In other words, prior to data transfer (from my PC to TrendMicro sites, which got blocked by both ZA and subsequently by Windows firewall when I had temporarily shut down ZA & re-activated Windows firewall for testing), the required Java applets did download and got initialised ... I had observed this in the status bar of my browsers. But thereafter, outward traffic to TrendMicro apparently got blocked, and since TrendMicro did not get a response from my PC, the scanning process froze. I am no techie, so all this may be wrong ... just a hypothesis.
Java plugin ... today went to do some online banking, and my Bank's website is Java-coded. Was a breezy experience (as usual). My conclusion : Java plugin working fine in my PC.
Finally, "
It takes several minutes to download the as4web.cab file,and nothing appears to happen during that time." Peddant, I have done TrendMicro online so many times in the past (prior to ZA install), I have carefully observed the process. I am on broadband, and this time I concluded nothing was happening after waiting for very long time ... in the past, the actual scan had started by then. Basically, TrendMicro just seemed to have frozen (no internet or harddisc activity whatsoever), whether in IE or Firefox.
Thanks again to all for your patience,