@Omega15

You're not entirely speaking the truth here. The latest greatest version of ZA does seem to have some problems and not just with Freelancer. Go visit their forums and read the countless complaints. They can't all just be whining just to whine. (on a personal note, why people don't save previous version of a product so they can revert back is byond my comprehension) The reason I said you're not entirely accurate is because during beta testing Freelancer it was literally impossible for me to play FL multiplayer unless I had ZA turn on ....go figure. But that was using an older version of ZA too (4.0xx). For the record, I have duplicated this event exactly and more than once by backtracking my ZA version...just to see if it was really ZA or some other component. Everything changed when ZA rolled out the latest 5.0xx version my friend. There's actually 2 versions of 5.0xx, but they both react to Freelancer the same. The problems created are NOT just with Freelancer...for example some people are saying the latest version of ZA renders Visual Studio inoperable!

So depending on what version you have, your experience with ZA will vary. I just wanted to be sure if we're giving technical advice around here it was leaning towards being more accurate than simply an assumption.

Rob "Stinger" Lordier
Creator of the original Privateer FAQ
3+ years here and still lovin' every minute!
Favorite saying - Life is a journey, not a destination

I've gone over these forums many times try to find out how to play Freelancer online without having to take ZoneAlarm down because we all know how important internet security is, that and I didn't know or didn't realize that my router had a firewall already on it. Which now that I think about it is weird because was one of the first things that I asked about the router when we got our DSL home-network package. As for trying an older version of ZA I have no clue why I did not do that. Oh, by the way something I forgot to mention was that just a few months ago I was playing FL online and running ZA at the same time, v.4.0xx mind you. So why didn't I try going back a version in ZA? who knows. You know the easy thing to do always happens to be the last thing we try.
I knew when I wrote the post that it wasn't entirely true, that would be to easy. The simple fact is that there are quite a few posts about FL and net connection issues and for those people running ZA I gave my solution and my thoughts on the matter. So there you have it boys and girls two solutions on how to play FL online if you are using ZA: either trun off ZA or go back to v.4.0xx, but please don't let these be the only two solutions.

Thanks to Stinger for his informative response

And thanks to everyone that reads all this.... go get a cookie, you earned it. If, and only if, you read it all you earned a cookie, if you didn't read it all you can't have a cookie.

*reads it all and buys himself a big lunch*

Am I understanding this correctly - you're behind a router and still running Zonealarm? If you have NAT implemented (as most/all residantial routers do) and don't have yourself DMZ'ed (which is largely unnecessary) then ZA is basically just taking up space. NAT is relatively solid protection, especially compared to any software out there.

And it's not just MS games - I have one or two older games that ZA would not let me connect a server online at all. I DMZ'ed, opened ports, Allowed everything... nothing except shutting it down worked. I eventually just broke, bought a router (needed it anyway) and trashed ZA. This was a while ago too - a 4.xx build.