Hi, can someone help me please? I am connecting through a netgear router DG834G to the internet and have sygate personal firewall (SPF) on "normal" security level. If I want to send an email via Microsoft Outlook I have to set SPF to "Allow All" in order to send emails. How can I set up a rule to allow emails to go out without changing the FW each time. I have not seen a popup asking me "XY is trying to connect to.. do want to allow..". Also there is currently no application "Blocked". Most are on "Ask" and some are on "Allow". I have searched this forum, google and SPF website and I can't find info.

Right click the Sygate icon in the Sys tray and choose Applications. Then you right click Outlook and go in to Advanced. Here you check that Act as Client is ticked but not Act as Server, and enter the follwing in Remote server ports: 25, 110 if you have a POP3 and SMTP account. For Hotmail enter 80. I'm not certain this will solve your problem, but this is how you normally would configure it. HTH Nigel

Thanks I played with the settings you suggested without success. I have also set Outlook on "Allow" and it doesn't work. Surely if advanced rules supposed to work "Allow" must also work. I understand allow is a blank rule which provides less security but if that does not work advanced rules won't work either. Is that correct?

Allow means that the specified program is allowed to connect but unless you specify which ports under advanced, this program is allowed through all ports. Port 25 and 110 are the ones used for POP3 and SMTP so there is normally no reson to allow any other ports for an e-mail program. And yes that is correct. Try to set up the account via Outlook Express to check that the account works. If it does, your problem lies within Outlook.

I am using Microsoft Outlook (MO) and yes the email account works because it does send without problems when the entire firewall is set to "Allow All". So MO is not the problem. Once I set SPF to "Normal" I cannot send emails even if under Applications MO is "Allowed". Therefore I cannot see defining advanced rules for MO can work. I also agree that restricting access of a particular application is safer than a blank rule. So I still don't know what is blocking my emails. Is there an other application involved in sending and if yes why does Sygate not ask me that something is trying to "connect to ..."? As I said no program is disallowed from accessing the net. Most are on "Ask" status!

Last thing I can think of is removing Outlook from Applications under SPF when Outlook is closed. When you open Outlook again to send/receive mail, you will get a new message from SPF that Outlook is trying to connect. If this doesn't work, check Sygates help pages here: http://smb.sygate.com/support/documents/spf/default.htm, cut and past in your browser. Nigel

Thank you Nigel Your link provided me with the solution! http://forums.sygate.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=12518 Thanks again for your help!