i messed with the settings a whole lot but it still wont let me check email, sometimes it blocks me from connecting to any webpages and i get messages like connection to "www.webpage.com refused" no matter what page i try to go to. im gonna try reinstalling, maybe that will work... i've been using mozilla thunderbird and outlook express and im still getting the same results: sometimes i can receive email, sometimes i cant, but i can never send mail with the firewall on.(my incomming and outgoing pop3 servers are different).