9 replies to this topic

[VideoPod]

Ok,
I'm doing the Zone Alarm Beta and noticed that my old standby Screen Caputre & Image Conversion Software Clip'nSave circu DynaLink Technologies is being rendered unusable.
First of all is anyone else here on the Zone Alarm Beta?
If so what are you using for Screen Capture & Image Conversion?
I'm in a bind because I want to stay with the Beta but I need the Utility as I write tutorials and
implement the screen captures which of course I no longer can do.
Thank You In advance.

[James (Jim) Hillier]

Hey VideoPod - I do not use Zone Alarm and I never would. HOWEVER, there are plenty of very good alternative screen capture tools available in the freeware ranks. Are you looking for a specific feature or component?

Here are several of the best for you to check out, they are all free and include usual capture options plus a built-in editor:

PicPick Tools (portable)

Screenpresso (portable)

EasyCapture

Hopefully, one of those will play nice with Zone Alarm.

HTH,
Cheers....Jim

[marko]

As for your original issue, unfortunately I couldn't hazard a guess as to what could be the problem I'm afraid - sounds somewhat unusual that a firewall would interupt the workings of a screen capture program to be honest.   As Jim has already said, best bet would be to find an alternative screen capture program, or alternatively try another firewall see if that clears the problem  
Marko

[VideoPod]

Opps, I sausage fingered it.  Hit reply and thought another screen would come up.  
Thanks for the help.   I'm interested as to why you would never use Zone Alarm.  I already know that it has one blind side for the XP Security 2011 program Virus.  Lost the Hard Drive over that!  So I am open to fixes for that.
I do know that MalwareBytes will catch it and loaded that.  However, I can't figure out why Zone Alarm hasn't fixed this yet.  I got his by the 2010 version and posted it in their forums and now got hit by the 2011 version so I'm thinking somethings fishey....  Might be a trusted Zone Alarm contributor or something.
That aside Yes I did tell them I'd help them with the Beta for this very reason so that's why I'm on it.
I also own 3 subscriptions of the regular copy but if they can't fix the XP Security 2011 virus and it still interferes with Screen Grabbers then I won't be able to use it.
I'll look at the utilities you posted.
Thank You Very Much.
Murph

James (Jim) Hillier, on 18 May 2011 - 11:11 PM, said:

Hey VideoPod - I do not use Zone Alarm and I never would. HOWEVER, there are plenty of very good alternative screen capture tools available in the freeware ranks. Are you looking for a specific feature or component?

Here are several of the best for you to check out, they are all free and include usual capture options plus a built-in editor:

PicPick Tools (portable)

Screenpresso (portable)

EasyCapture

Hopefully, one of those will play nice with Zone Alarm.

HTH,
Cheers....Jim

[VideoPod]

It's the weirdest thing.  If I reboot and click on the ClipnSave it works on the desktop.  As soon as I open up Mozilla's Firefox which has the zone alarm tool bar... then anything I try to capture turns out black.  In fact if I try to use the adjustable size crosshairs for capture as I draw the mouse over the graphic a 120by100 pixel box appears and erases whatever is on screen in that particular area of the mouse.  Very Very Weird.
I'll Try some of the previous mentioned utilities.
Thank You so Much for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated.
Murph

marko, on 19 May 2011 - 06:16 AM, said:

As for your original issue, unfortunately I couldn't hazard a guess as to what could be the problem I'm afraid - sounds somewhat unusual that a firewall would interupt the workings of a screen capture program to be honest.   As Jim has already said, best bet would be to find an alternative screen capture program, or alternatively try another firewall see if that clears the problem  
Marko

[James (Jim) Hillier]

Hey Murph,

Quote

I'm interested as to why you would never use Zone Alarm.

I'm not a huge fan of 3rd party firewalls in general. I don't believe they offer any real advantages for the vast majority of average users and, in many cases, the ratio of benefits to drawbacks is not positive. IMO, outbound firewalls are mostly all noise and offer very little in the way of any real extra protection.
(I would be happy to expand on this and offer a more detailed explanation - might be a good topic for the forum perhaps )

Why Zone Alarm in particular? I've been writing about software and moderating help forums for a long time. If someone reports a certain software won't run or is not working properly, first question [in response] is always, 'what security software are you running'. Most answers will always include a third party firewall in the list and Zone Alarm is the one mentioned more often than not......and, bingo!! there's your culprit.

So, in fairness, I am not basing my opinion of Zone Alarm on any first hand experience, rather on personal observations.

Cheers....Jim

[jjj]

. I had a similar problem with the simple printscreen  button  copying from a chrome browser to paintnet - everything black like yours -
so maybe its a browser issue rather than Zone alarm. The same for paused videos in VLC - found and alternative so never resolved the issue.

[VideoPod]

jjj, on 25 May 2011 - 04:33 PM, said:

. I had a similar problem with the simple printscreen  button  copying from a chrome browser to paintnet - everything black like yours -
so maybe its a browser issue rather than Zone alarm. The same for paused videos in VLC - found and alternative so never resolved the issue.

I think You're on the right track regarding the browser because I'm using a beta of Mozilla too!  I forgot about that until you mentioned the Browser thing!!  Geeeezzz....  Sorry.
Hey, While I'm thinking about this does anyone have a good recomendation for a forms tool that I could use to emmbed in to a Website for people to sign a petition and give us their contact information as well.  I was looking at WooFoo....

[marko]

Only petition system I've used jjj was http://www.petitiononline.com/ but I'm not sure whether you can integrate this into a website of your own

[TheRaven]

Zone Alarm has been a complaint on many forums as being somewhat unfriendly with software installations and operations on various levels requiring the user to be a bit too much by way of system administrator and/or power user. The average compliant is about the complexity that one must face in order to get their systems installed and running as they should by average to intermediate users. Zone Alarm isn't the only butt of this complaint that any moderate web search will yield definitive results in numerous areas from programming (like assembler; etc.) to media software and especially web connected/networked media software tools and utilities.

Big Jim and Marko will both agree that this is a dilemma that will not go away anytime soon as security on the system level requires the user's attention or you will run into problems where applications can set and configure anti-virus and firewall software systems potentially introducing conflict of interest. I experienced this same sympton with Microsoft Security Essentials as a trojan hijacked my Windows 7, did a reboot and started up before I even logged in and was scanning my directories in a GUI right in front of me. The application was trying to promote anti-virus software and is one of the oldest slight of hand tactics by thieves out there and it still impacts even the most current operating systems.

Be careful and most certain that you can trust what it is that you're using and manually oversee all operations and configurations regarding your trusted security software platforms otherwise you rendered them useless and essentially wasted every penny you spent on them not to mention all the time that you spent installing and setting up the software in the first place.

The trojan that hijacked my system installed itself in my system through openCandy which is an open source adware framework and did so through a paid for licensed media editing software system that I purchased user rights to online at the NVidia market Place so don't assume that just because is good enough. NVidia is reputable, but I was not feeling any kind of peace or contentment when the application (VReveal) was utilized as the transport system for an attack that destroyed my entire O.S. installation and set me back over two weeks. VReveal was promptly deleted from my software collection and will never return -- long story short.

Conclusion, be careful with media on any level and especially if there are any networking concerns involved. The disclaimer that software is adware free; etc. isn't worth its weight in dog droppings. You MUST be proactive and that's the bottom line end of story.