With the help of HJThis on D-A-L I successfully cleaned up my system from all adware and spyware and also installed the ZoneAlarm Firewall - but now I am unable to open many of my otherwise frequented websites like www.gmail.com and www.yahoo.com and many other non-e-mail websites..

Can someone please help me out with this - I am unable to access my official e-mail either.

Best Regards,
Naina

You need to open up ZA and click on the web filtering button down the left. See what is checked in the categories tab and main tab.
I run mine with parental control and smart filtering off and only some of the categories ticked. It may be necessary to play with the settings in this area to get access.

Hi there - I couldn't find the "web filtering" button... But I tried fiddling with some other settings and gmail and yahoo are working fine for the time being! Thank you for the pointer!
Best Regards,
Naina

Glad to help. I run ZAPro so filtering might not be on the standard one. Just make sure your settings arent too low or it can still let some nasties in.