Mozilla wants to act as server?

hi all

Recently I've downloaded and install mozilla 1.1, it is first time I am using Mozilla ( I use Opera too ). When I run Mozilla the ZoneAlarm pop ups two messages, the first one is Mozilla wants to access to Internet and the second one is mozilla wants to act as server.
The first one is ok with me but I want to know why Mozilla like to act as a server unlike other browsers! and I'd like to know if this might be safe or not.
BTW even if I do not allow Mozilla to act as a server I can surf the web and nothing seems to be wrong.

Thanks all.

Presumably by saying "it wants to act as a server", that means that it's opening either:

1. Listening TCP sockets
2. UDP sockets

The browser might legitimately do the second.

I've looked at the ports before / after mozilla is opened on my machine, and it opens no sockets at all as far as I can tell (my home page is a local HTML page)

Does zone alarm provide more details?

AFAICT, the two possibilities are:

1. Your copy of mozilla is trojaned and it is genuinely trying to start a server for nefarious purposes
2. Zonealarm is lying, and is falsely detecting something else that mozilla is legitimately doing as a server

IMHO, number 2 is more likely - especially if you obtained mozilla from a secure source.

Of course there might be something funny like plugins causing this to happen too ... I really don't know enough about your configuration to tell.

Slarty

It would depend on where you got it imho. If you got it from the right source, you should be fine. Another site distributing it could have trojaned it and that could be why it is having that message.

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Originally posted here by slarty
Does zone alarm provide more details?
1. Your copy of mozilla is trojaned and it is genuinely trying to start a server for nefarious purposes

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It would depend on where you got it imho. If you got it from the right source, you should be fine. Another site distributing it could have trojaned it and that could be why it is having that message.

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No, ZoneAlarm do not provide more details.
I've downloaded from www.mozilla.org and I do always download my programs from thier original sites.

I haven't used Mozilla, but does it have any sort of advertisement/pop-up blocking? Some programs which do so are required to act as a server, redirecting all traffic to the loopback address. It may also be that you're running a Beta version which wants to report usage statistics back to the creators. What I would recommend, if you're worried... simply deny it access, surf the 'net for an hour or so and see if there are any negative effects. If not, then you're fine. If so, enable access to the 'net and see what happens.

AJ

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does it have any sort of advertisement/pop-up blocking?

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No It doesn't have advertisement and pop-up blocking ( unlike Opera which it has ).
And as I mentioned I don't have any problem surfing the web when I don't allow the server part of mozilla.