Norton 360

[John_Smith]

Anyone know why on at least some computers the Norton 360 firewall component auto configuration for Firefox allows all inbound TCP traffic? 

Especially because of vulnerabilities that arise periodically in Firefox, etc, this openness seems potentially dangerous.  Please let me know what inbound traffic is actually required, from where and for what purpose? 

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi John_Smith,

TCP connections are allowed because the browser uses TCP to establish connections to websites.  The firewall only allows traffic that is solicited by a program or process running on your computer, so all inbound TCP traffic is blocked except for that which is in reply to a request from your PC.  The Norton Smart Firewall allows only known safe programs to access the internet.  Firefox is trusted, so when it attempts to download a webpage for you, Norton allows it,

[Bombastus]

It is weird in a way, though, because Firefox actually does not need an open port for inbound traffic. Only outbound. I know the Norton firewall automatically creates inbound rules for Firefox allowing them, but that rule is actually in no way necessary or needed. Firefox works just as well without it. And other firewalls do not create this inbound rule; for example, the Windows firewall doesn't prompt for it, simply because Firefox never requests inbound connections.

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi Bombastus,

You are correct about this.  It may be due to Firefox setting up  loopback connections.  I notice that my FIrefox has several connections established to localhost at any given time.  Don't know why, but there is a discussion about this at Wilders:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=117569