Hi there, I'm a total newbie with firewalls. I just bought and installed Norton on my Mac. When Skype is running, I get firewall alerts every few minutes that different computers with different IP addresses are trying to access Skype. Is this normal or cause for concern?
Thanks for any input and tolerating such a basic question.
Hi rowerca,
What ports are involved with the activity you are seeing? Would it be port 80 and port 443, perhaps? If so, there is a checkbox in the Skype connections settings that reads: Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections. Uncheck that box to prevent Skype from listening on those ports. I'm not certain that this is the cause of your issue, but I think it could be.
This activity is normal with Skype. You probably want to allow anybody to access Skype on your Mac since that's kind of the point of Skype---you don't know the other person's IP address.
To do so, go into Norton Firewall, click in Firewall tab, and click on Configure next to Connection Blocking. Click on the "Assist me" at the bottom of the window to go through the setup assistant. If you can't figure out the questions in the seutp assistant, post here and we'll be glad to help.
More of the same here.... this is really bothering me.... just installed Norton (4.2.1 (7)) for Mac (OS 10.6.8). Someone keeps saying throughout the forum to allow all connections because that is the purpose of Skype... no it's not. Purpose of Skype is to connect to friends and family of my choosing.... Skyping with my sister in Europe this morning and the "user trying to access..." warning actually broke the connection. I have been using computers for many years, but am definitely "technically challenged". I have read all of the forum posts and still don't know whether to block or allow. Don't want to miss calls from my contacts, don't want to put my computer in jeopardy... need more guidance!
I'm not sure what's expected here. The firewall is doing as it's been setup to do--alert you whenever somebody connects to your Mac. If you don't want the alerts, then you need to take the steps above.
Basically, if you don't want the notifications when you know the person on the other side is "safe", then you have to tell the firewall who is allowed, and who is not. And that takes a bit of setup.
Or you can choose to allow all connections to Skype. Skype will then alert you in its own way when somebody is connecting to you.
There's no "automatic allow of people I already have in my Skype list" because Skype doesn't tell anybody, including Norton Firewall, that information.
If you only want to be alerted when somebody you don't know tries to connect to your Mac, then you need to enter all those IP addresses into your firewall. Otherwise, the firewall has no idea who is a friend/family, and who is an unknown intruder. It can't ask Sype for that information (and frankly, I'd be a bit worried if Skype just gave it up!)
It's true that the firewall can't work for this type of application, but it's not putting your Mac at risk. Other security features, like Vulnerability Protection and AntiVirus, are still monitoring the Skype connection without getting in the way. The firewall is the first line of defense, but not the only.