I use ZoneAlarm as my personal firewall. It gives an alert and explanation when I start K-Meleon as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SERVER PROGRAM
ZoneAlarm Program Alert

Do you want to allow K-Meleon Web Browser to act as a server?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The modern incarnation accomplishes this by acting as a network server -- listening for, and accepting, connection requests fromthe Internet. These are programs to be aware of and to be concerned about because they can corrupt your system, steal information, or use your computer to hack into other computers. ZoneAlarm protects you from these programs, as long as it is configured properly. Make sure you read the alerts as they happen. Do not let programs you don't recognize act as servers. If you have a program that you don't think needs Internet access, don't give it acces to the Internet!

I honestly can't see why you would have got that message, unless it is simple as ZoneAlarm has noticed km is waiting for a response from a site. netstat on my pc shows nothing out the ordinary on km's behalf, and I have no unusual connections.

I don't think this is anything you should worry about, just a slightly over protective firewall.

I also use ZA and got same message. But don't see where it has done any harm to ok request. Got same request when I first installed ZA about Internet Explorer first time I tried to use it after switching to ZA for Norton Personal Firewall.

OK. Thanks for your advices.

I don't panic.

By the way, the address it communicates is 216.136.171.201 aka
usw-pr-web.sourceforge.net

see these threads:

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1322&t=1322

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1401&t=1401

A little bit of knowledge.. heh.

The amount of times I see posts about ZA reporting apps from a client machine reporting 'this and that' begger's belief.

The Internet would never work without two way communication.

And one small point... KM is GPL Open Source - Zone Alarm isn't. What is ZA doing, hmmm?

Nick

I knew there was a reason I was going to put this in the FAQ...

OK, I've added it:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/docs/faq.php#trouble9

Andrew

Thanks for your expert answer.

I don't care how and why ZA alerts 'this and that'.

BUT,
1) I'm worrying why there is no source code of the version 0.6 available if it is open source as you claim.
2) I'm also worrying that Andrew explains that KM communicates internally (localhost: 127.0.0 etc) if the address is 216.136.171.201.

What comes to the two way communication, there is already one server waiting -- web server. (The real P2P programs are working even without any server, you know.
Other hand, in future the programs may interoperate with Universal Network Objects (UNO) and use, for example, StarOffice6 like a server, you know too.)

I have had at one time nine different NS6.x and Mozilla builds and nightly.Everyone asks to become the server.I have always said no,and I did not miss anything.

It's a good suggestion, Fulvio.
I like to use KM, but I don't like it if it has undesirable side-effects.

.antti a.

Antti,

The source code is available to review online and download from CVS at SourceForge.

I don't know what your ZoneAlarm message is reporting. I would have to know what you were trying to do when it gave you the alarm.

Andrew

The reason why K-Meleon aks for server rights is the exact same
reason why Mozilla, Netscape 6.x.x, and any other Mozilla based
browser would ask for server rights. It is simply an internal server
request, asking for permission to send data from one bit of the
software, to another. It is NOT asking you for the rights to turn
your entire HD into an internet server. The only current web
browser that would ever stoop that low is the one that's
built right into the core of the OS. Yup, you guessed
it folks . . . Bill's devilchild - M$ Internet Explorer!

Anyway, just go onto the Netscape 6.x for Windows newsgroup
on snews://secnews.netscape.com/, and you'll notice after much
rooting around, that "Netscape Champion", Jay Garcia, has pretty
answered very similar queries, as to why NS6.x requests server
rights thru Zone Alarm, and ye shall see, that his answers simply
confirm that it is perfectly safe to allow NS6.x/Mozilla/K-Meleon
server rights thru Z.A. There are no such serious security and
privacy violations possible in any of the Mozilla based browsers
as you would most likely with the evil M$ Internal Exploiter!

Hello, just freshly downloaded and came on by to say:

ZA first asked me if I wanted to give my new green friend server rights. I told it no.
(I'm not technically literate enough to be soothed by the FAQ or the linked posts above.) It then asked if I wanted to let K-M access the Internet. I told it yes.

Seems to be working fine.

ZA isn't really that great of a firewall... It's basically the AOL of firewalls, so to speak. Of course, it's not nearly as bad as the schiott that is BlackIce, but I digress...

Tiny Personal Firewall is a MUCH better firewall, offering fewer screw-ups, less bloat, much better stability, extensive monitoring, and fine control. It's one of the only REAL firewalls available on Windows. If you're smart enough to understand what an IP address is, you should be able to use TPF. It's also free for personal use like Zonealarm, but is a lot smaller, a lot faster, doesn't have "pro version" nags, and isn't made by a company that also makes spyware libraries (even if they claim that ZA is spyware-free.)

Now, if only it were open-sourced... Then again, that's what Linux and OpenBSD are here for.