I was sure I had posted this today, but - guess not so here goes.
Using NIS 2011 (purchased - not trialware).
Now, after many weeks of use, there are constant popups stating "A monitor rule was detected for the application (insert software here)"
This is new, and annoying. I've been through every link within the program GUI. I asked Nathan, but it seems he is on some strong Acid, and Google says "get AVG", "reinstall it", "delete your browser cache" (Norton tech support) - "disable the firewall" ~~ uh, yeah OK. So it was no help either.
It sounds like a custom rule was created in the Smart Firewall Program Control listing to monitor whatever application you are being alerted to. To change this, open Program Control, click on the program in question to highlight it, and click Modify. Select one of the program rules shown and again click Modify. Under the Action tab, remove the mark from the Monitor option, if there is one and OK your way out.
You shouldn't have to reinstall. I'm not sure why the Firewall is monitoring everything, but the easiest way to fix this is to open the Norton Network Settings, click Advanced Settings Configure[+], and click Reset[+] to restore the firewall to its defaults. Make notes of any custom rules you made and wish to keep because you will have to re-enter them.
I don't think it has been mentioned that in the 2011 version you can silence popups by hovering over the name of the "group" like Smart Firewall and when.;you see a popup <g> explaining what it is you may see the word Ignore there also -- if you click on that word it will stop popups from things that you want done and don't want to be nagged about .... like turning off Email Scanning ! <g>
I don't think it has been mentioned that in the 2011 version you can silence popups by hovering over the name of the "group" like Smart Firewall and when.;you see a popup <g> explaining what it is you may see the word Ignore there also -- if you click on that word it will stop popups from things that you want done and don't want to be nagged about .... like turning off Email Scanning ! <g>
What huwyngr says is true, you can selectively turn off status monitoring for various Norton components. But this is meant to be used when you are disabling a feature intentionally and do not want, or need, to be reminded about it. I would highly recommend that you do not disable monitoring of the Norton Smart Firewall. This is an extremely vital piece of your protection - unlike email scanning - and if anything ever went wrong with the firewall you would want to know about it immediately. You only need to eliminate the program rule alerts you are getting. Accomplishing this by telling Norton to ignore any and all problems with the firewall is not a good plan. Again, I would suggest resetting the firewall, which will eliminate any program network access monitoring rule, and should stop the alerts for you.
You are correct that turning off status monitoring does not disable the firewall. But it does prevent Norton from alerting you to any problems that might develop with the firewall. Without monitoring turned on, Norton would never notify you if the firewall became incapacitated, and you could conceivably go for a long time completely unaware that you had no firewall.
I did set up a rule for a special Port so WebDisk could operate externally. It was after that, that everything that was on the OK list, would cause a popup when it was activated - for example, when I open Tunderbird, the popup would tell meThunderbird rule was used.
I followed one of the ideas above (can't remember which) and have had no popups. Maybe - no firewall!
Perhaps, I will reset it again. Will look to see if there is a way to know if Firewall is working right or not.
When creating a firewall rule manually you are given the option to have Norton monitor that rule. It will log every instance that the rule is invoked and will notify the user each time. It sounds like, for some unexplained reason, this rule monitoring option is being applied to every program that requests internet access. Resetting the firewall will erase all manually configured rules, leaving only the default settings - this should fix the issue, and the OP can then recreate any manual rules (although, it is preferable to simply change the access permission of any program in Program Control rather than make new rules).
To make sure that Norton status monitoring of the Smart Firewall is enabled, hover the mouse cursor over the words "Smart Firewall" on the main Norton window. If the popup gives you the option to Ignore, then monitoring is enabled and all is well - if the option shown is Monitor, then status alerts for this component are turned off and clicking Monitor will restore them.
