Strange firewall problem

[tuglet]

Hi

I run a fairly elderly Watchguard firewall which is giving me grief. I have to logon to a customer's web site and click a link to download a ZIP file - nothing fancy. This works perfectly well in Firefox 3.5 on XP Pro SP3 but not at all in IE6, IE7 or IE8. I get this error in the browser window:

"HTTP/1.0 403 Response denied Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 500 WatchGuard firewall: Response denied from http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:80/jobs/queue/dmk641019_wev... Unsafe applet"

I can download ZIP files from other web sites using IE without bother - there just seems to be something about this particular site. I've spoken to the web developers and they are adamant that there's nothing unusual about their site.

What does IE do differently from FF that my firewall could possibly object to?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated as I have run out of ideas.

Cheers
tuglet

[Jinx]

Not just an IE security setting?

[paddyhasneeds]

We've had similar issues with our firewall (not a Watchguard) on the RS Components website.

In our case it's because something, and I also never figured out what the "something" was, wasn't conforming to the http/https RFC's so our firewall denied it by default.

Not sure it helps much but I'm equally curious how a request/response differs between web browsers if you're not using something proprietary like ActiveX.

[tuglet]

Jinx said:

Not just an IE security setting?

The developers assure me we're the only company having issues. I've tried setting Internet zone in IE to all security levels, reset defaults, added the web site to the trusted sites list, and messing around with privacy settings but nothing seems to work.

[tuglet]

paddyhasneeds said:

We've had similar issues with our firewall (not a Watchguard) on the RS Components website.

In our case it's because something, and I also never figured out what the "something" was, wasn't conforming to the http/https RFC's so our firewall denied it by default.

Not sure it helps much but I'm equally curious how a request/response differs between web browsers if you're not using something proprietary like ActiveX.

Frustrating isn't it. I've been able to get around similar issues in the past by adding the site to the list of exceptions on my firewall but even that isn't working this time.

Anyone know if there's an application that can capture and display the http request/response in real time? Maybe a browser plugin?

ETA: 2 minutes on Google has thrown up several possibilities.

Edited by tuglet on Tuesday 16th February 20:22

[cs02rm0]

tuglet said:

"HTTP/1.0 403 Response denied Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 500 WatchGuard firewall: Response denied from http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:80/jobs/queue/dmk641019_wev... Unsafe applet"

Should be application/zip I think, not sure if it's relevant.

[tuglet]

cs02rm0 said:

tuglet said:

"HTTP/1.0 403 Response denied Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 500 WatchGuard firewall: Response denied from http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:80/jobs/queue/dmk641019_wev... Unsafe applet"

Should be application/zip I think, not sure if it's relevant.

According to HTTPDebuggerPro, the web server is advertising the content type as application/x-zip-compressed; this content type is already allowed through my firewall.

I've quickly compared the request/response streams from FF and IE using HTTPDebuggerPro and they look identical on first inspection. I'll look closer in the morning. Caprica's just started on Sky 1 and I'm confused enough already because I missed the pilot.