Ta-da!!! I fixed it. For the 31st time (!) I opened ZA and looked through the various screens. I found "Appplication Control" and for Spywareblaster there were red "X's" under "inbound" and "outbound". In this same table SAS (which is updating) had green checks. There was no indication that I could/should click on the "X's" but I thought to do so; a menu appeared which allowed me to change the red "X's" to green checks. After this, when I tried to update Spywareblaster, it worked. Thank you all for considering my problem. Mike_kaiser, you're probably correct, and I'm heavy on the security programs. This computer is about 7 years old and over the years, I've slowly added these programs (and very recently, the router) as they've been recommended here. When one has been recommended I don't recall a corresponding recommendation to get rid of "x". So the list has grown. My computer seems to be running fine and isn't particularly slow so I haven't inquired about what I could remove.

It never bothered me like this before. It messes up my remote connection with my office computer because ZA won't allow you to control it remotely. I do a lot of work from home using the office machine through Go to my PC. It blocks access to my office computer and then I have to drive in and 'allow.' An hour later the same thing happens. I googled the problem and the cure was to shut off automatic updates. Did that, changed it to manual and it didn't stop it. I'm wondering if other firewalls will allow remote control? At home, I do tell it to allow, but it continues to pop up every hour or so. Is it safe to change the ZA setting to 'always allow.' The place where you change the question marks to green checks? I always thought Java was easily hacked. Jane

when you get the updated version for zone alarm you no longer have to keep it at medium you go back to high, moving the slider to medium was/ is only for those that have not updated their zone alarm to the latest updated fixed version. I use an old version of zone alarm pro the old versions were not affected. You will see on the page I linked to from zone alarm in the center it says recommended actions: Recommended Actions - Download and install the latest versions which solve the loss of internet access problem here (English only): then there are the links to the new versions of zone alarm you select the one that you have be it za free basic firewall or za suite. The other options listed below that are only for if you did not do this step. This is the version number you want to have it is the latest updated one. 7.0.483.000 ONLY get these from the zone alarm site to make sure you are getting the fixed version or by going into your zone alarm program and hitting the update button it will get the update for you.

I posted the link to the other thread for you so that you could go in there and get the link to the actual fixed version of zone alarm, from that thread here is the link that you would have found there. Download and install the latest versions which solve the loss of internet access problem here under that Recommended actions it has the links to every single version of the zone alarm updates if you use the free that would be the basic firewall. If you click on that link there it gives you the actual exe to download. What you were looking at on the site you posted was a trial for the zone alarm security suite NOT the free one, if you just look over to the right on that page there is a button for the basic firewall only UPDATE that is what you would want and when you hit that it gives the exe also.