An increasingly annoying issue with the Zyxel Zywall SSL 10 vpn appliance is that you have to download the client software from the appliance when you connect, and the officially supported browser list does not include IE8. Actually, I don't think it includes IE7 either, but Zyxel tech support told me that IE7 does work, and subsequent testing confirmed that to be true. Once 8 is installed on an XP or Vista system, you can restore 7 by uninstalling IE8. OK, not happy about it, but that is workable -- until you go to Windows 7, where the default browser is IE8.
Once the Zywall Secu-extender virtual VPN adapter is installed, you can start the VPN using the system tray icon. Our remote programmer somehow damaged his pre-Windows7 installation of the Secu-extender, so we were now faced with re-installing it. Tried IE8 and Firefox, but neither gets past the "Loading..." graphic. On a hunch, we tried Chrome (v. 3.0.195.24) and it worked perfectly! For now, that appears to be the workaround. I see nothing on the Zyxel site that suggests that they will be updating the firmware in the Zywall SSL 10 to support the newer versions of IE or Firefox, so let's hope that Google keeps Chrome from getting too fancy.
To be specific, the fix in this case required uninstalling the broken Zywall Secu-extender from Control Panel, then launching Chrome and connecting to our https URL to trigger a fresh download and install.
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