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I have been having a slightly annoying problem from Norton Personal Firewall '03. The problem is that when I have it enabled I can't view the gallery here at TS, as well as a few other sites.
I also explained the problem HERE over a week ago and no one has so much as responded so I decided to open a thread hoping someone could help.
I first thought it might be caused by the ad blocker add-on, but I have disabled it and the images in the gallery are still broken. The only way I have found to view the gallery is to disable NPF, this is not an option. I have also tried specifying user defined rules to allow techspot.com content pass through NPF but it didn't help either. There are very few things left to try and I doubt that the gallery is using either of those protocols.

Can someone shed some light on this?

I dont know how the gallery is set up but if the images are viewable from anothr sever than the one techspot.com is on that might be a problem. I know some firewalls and browsers have settings that allow the images on the server you have acessed to be shown but block images originating from another source even if they are on the same page.

I don't see the images either, and that's when ZoneAlarm is active. I can't see any of my firewall settings that could cause this, and I thought there was a problem with the site until I read this thread. Time for some investigation.

I installed npf02 and now can't see the gallery either.

I've been using MYIE2 lately and didn't know there was a problem. I've got IE, Avant Browser, MYIE2 and Opera on my computer. Can't see any images in the gallery on IE or Opera. Avant and MYIE2 there is no problem. I'm using Zone Alarm Pro. Must be a browser setting of some kind causing the problem.

Don't think its a browser setting, since I can see it fine if I disable NPF.

Another thing that is different with these four browsers, with IE and Opera, I have no "Profile" or "E-Mail" button at the bottom of each post. With MYIE2 and Avant, it's there, no problem.

I use mozilla firebird dont have any problem at all seeing the images

You are missing the point

[SIZE=4]IT IS NOT A BROWSER ISSUE[/SIZE]

I was responding to Olefarte's post about browsers.

and I think the evidence is pretty conclusive its your firewall causing the problem.

*bump*

Ah yes, I had the same exact problem as you, StormBringer.

Well I solved this problem myself, having trouble logging on to the Cisco academy, for my materials and such.

Well, I have NPF 2003 also, and I can't view the gallery. Now I just thought about what I did to get into the Cisco Academy, I disabled Privacy Control.

I don't think it's a problem if you disable Privacy Control when you're at a site you trust. I think it's only for protecting you from certain sites.

Well, turn off Privacy Control and viola... you can see it now.

Though, I wish Julio would do something about it so this wouldn't be necessary.

Edit: You know what's weird? I just saw the word Cisco highlighted and underlined in green and it had a definition. Huh, is that TS or somehow some mysterious thingy from another galaxy lol?

Well done XtR-X, that did it. The problem appears to be with cookies, which need to be accessed/modified each time a picture is loaded.

The gallery seems to require that cookies get modified everytime you access another image (my guess), unlike the forums, where once you have your cookie set (to allow auto login), you can set your firewall to block further cookies and things still work. What I don't understand is why the need to modify cookies to view a gallery image.

Can't someone disable the cookie feature in the gallery? Do we need to track which pictures are viewed using cookies? That's just my guess as to what is happening, so maybe someone can look into this.

One last point: I'm sure I tried disabling privacy settings previously, and the problem was still there. Maybe I remembered things incorrectly, as it seems to work now. Still at least I can now view the gallery.

Thanks XTR-X, this is an acceptable "temporary" workaround, though I would like to find a better solution, however this is much better than having to disable NPF to view the gallery.
I actually use privacy control when visiting sites I've never been to, as it comes in handy with blocking some of the crap some idiots use in their pages.

Nic: I may be wrong, but I don't think its cookies that is the problem because my privacy settings allowed all cookies unless they requested personal information. I wouldn't think that the gallery would need personal info, and if it does, I would like a good reason why.

What I noticed using ZoneAlarm is that when I have my cookie control set to 'medium' (i.e. Blocks cookies from tracking sites, Allows cookies for personalised services) then I cant see any pictures. If I set that one control to 'OFF', then all the pictures will appear. On 'medium' setting I am only blocking cookies from 'tracking sites' (i.e. not all cookies are blocked), and this appears to be the problem and stops any pictures from loading. I would assume that 'tracking' cookies are therefore used when viewing the gallery. Still I could be wrong if you are experiencing different issues.

Well Nic, I would agree if my settings had been set like that, but mine were set to a custom level which allowed all cookies except those that sent personal info. The settings are "allow all cookies" and "prompt before sending private info"
I was not getting any prompts.

The mystery deepens ...

Well at least we now have a workaround, though I can't see myself visiting the gallery much because of this. Maybe Julio can now take a look at how the gallery is set up, and try and see if there's anything that can be done to improve matters.

But I know....

It's a temporary fix... but you know what's on techspot...

I don't think there are any jpeg/gif/bmp image exploits [yet].