[OU] Opera as Server?

[Bart Hansen]

Starting with version 10 I have been getting alerts from my ZoneAlarm
Pro firewall to the effect that "the Opera browser wants to accept
connections from the Internet". These alerts arrive very
sporadically, usually in bursts, and often days pass between bursts.
At first I thought it might be the new auto update feature, but when
I turned that off the alerts continued. Differing port numbers are
associated with the alerts. I have consistently denied the alert
requests, without incident.

My ZoneAlarm program control setting for Opera does indeed call for a
prompt when it acts as an Internet server. This is a parm that has
not changed over the years.

I have asked for help at the ZoneAlarm and Opera forums without
getting a reply. Any ideas out there? Why might Opera now want to be a server?

Thanks,
Bart

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Sounds to me like it might be Opera Unite?

Post by Bart Hansen
Starting with version 10 I have been getting alerts from my ZoneAlarm
Pro firewall to the effect that "the Opera browser wants to accept
connections from the Internet". These alerts arrive very sporadically,
usually in bursts, and often days pass between bursts. At first I
thought it might be the new auto update feature, but when I turned that
off the alerts continued. Differing port numbers are associated with the
alerts. I have consistently denied the alert requests, without incident.
My ZoneAlarm program control setting for Opera does indeed call for a
prompt when it acts as an Internet server. This is a parm that has not
changed over the years.
I have asked for help at the ZoneAlarm and Opera forums without getting
a reply. Any ideas out there? Why might Opera now want to be a server?
Thanks,
Bart
--

[James Card]

Post by Bart Hansen
Starting with version 10 I have been getting alerts from my ZoneAlarm
Pro firewall to the effect that "the Opera browser wants to accept
connections from the Internet".

This is probably the new feature called Opera Unite. More details may be
found at <http://unite.opera.com/support/>. You can disable Unite in
Opera's configuration editor at <opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableUnite> or by
clicking on the Opera Unite icon in Opera status bar.

[Bart Hansen]

Thanks Patrick and James, but my status bar shows that Opera Unite is
disabled, and when I go to Tools - Unite Server I see only three
choices:

Enable Opera Unite
What is Opera Unite?
Discover local Opera Unite users
No local users found

This morning I received another half dozen of these Server Program
alerts from ZoneAlarm Pro, each citing a different port.

Could these alerts be Opera Unite users pinging me somehow, such that
Opera wants to act as a server in order to process them?

Remember, these ZAP alerts cite Opera specifically as wanting to act
as a server and accept connections from the Internet.

At a loss,
Bart
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by James Card

Starting with version 10 I have been getting alerts from my ZoneAlarm Pro
firewall to the effect that "the Opera  browser wants to accept connections
from the Internet".

This is probably the new feature called Opera Unite. More details may be
found at <http://unite.opera.com/support/>. You can disable Unite in Opera's
configuration editor at <opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableUnite> or by clicking
on the Opera Unite icon in Opera status bar.
--
James Card  --  <http://jdcard.com/>
Often there are several ways to understand a given set of
facts; some of them may be more useful than others.
--

[Hallvord Steen]

Post by Bart Hansen
Thanks Patrick and James, but my status bar shows that Opera Unite
is disabled

A bit far-fetched, perhaps but have you by any chance downloaded something with BitTorrent?
Hallvord R

[Bart Hansen]

Thanks for the reply, Hallvord, but no. To my knowledge, I don't use BitTorrent.

Bart
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Hallvord Steen

Post by Bart Hansen
Thanks Patrick and James, but my status bar shows that Opera Unite
is disabled

A bit far-fetched, perhaps but have you by any chance downloaded something with BitTorrent?
Hallvord R
--

[Hallvord Steen]

Post by Bart Hansen
Thanks for the reply, Hallvord, but no. To my knowledge, I don't use BitTorrent.

You could try disabling it anyway and see if that helps:


opera:config#BitTorrent|Enable

Under
opera:config#Web%20Server
I presume the "Enable" box is not ticked, in which case all other boxes probably should be irrelevant.

It might be easier to understand the problem if there is any way to make ZoneAlarm give you more information. For example, what IP addresses and port numbers are involved when this happens? If you can find this information in the ZoneAlarm warning it might give us more clues to what's happening.

(If you don't want to go through a lot of trouble to understand the problem, it should also be OK to configure ZoneAlarm to just always deny those requests. You'd have to remember to undo that if you one day wish to use server-like features such as Opera Unite though.)

Hallvord R.