Zone Alarm 6 seems a little buggy

[HKLO]

I have always put zone alarm at the top of my list because it's easy and hard to use...depends on what you want to do. However my experience now in version 6:

1. Takes more memory (roughly 17mb in 5.5 compared to 32mb now) for me.

2. Much longer delay in bootup compared to 5.5

3. Can crash computer if you don't want to let ZA do everything automatically

example: If I want to configure svchost.exe myself, ZA asks me if the OS firewall will let crss.exe communicate with it......I can't say yes because it crashes. So I have to let that go automatically and allow it to have "3 bar" trust.

4. When I check to allow a program to start everytime, it repeats that question 3 or 4 times. Unlike ZA 5.5

[HKLO]

To clear anything up, it's Zone Alarm Pro.

[Chuck_IV]

I don't think you'll get much argument about that(at least not from me). ZA6 was released before it was ready(it's still not to release quality yet, IMO). ZL rushed it out, IMO, to compete with Norton and their new Anti-Spyware version.

I used ZA 6 since it came out and it wasn't that bad at first, but then I needed to use my VPN into work quite often and that's when ZA started showing issues. My Cisco VPN would hang, when trying to connect and even shutting down ZA, sometimes I still couldn't connect until I rebooted with ZA off. I was also getting tired of ZA forgetting it's program access settings and asking me the same access questions for the same programs, over and over(even after following the prescribed fix or this).

I have quite a while left on my ZA Pro license but I finally had enough, for the time being and removed ZA, in favor of Outpost. I'll revisit ZA Pro one of these days, if they ever release a patch to deal with my issues.

[Tyreman]

You runnin' the free or the pro? :-\
yeah I saw the pro
Testing free out here..on 'nother drive. Just to see what it does for fun experience? :-\
Actually it went not to bad. ;D
But I did notice startup is a bit slower now. :'(
comes in a few seconds slower now on right hand tray loading. :(

[Arup]

Works like a dream here.

[Kerodo]

{QUOTE-> I have always put zone alarm at the top of my list because it's easy and hard to use...depends on what you want to do. However my experience now in version 6:

1. Takes more memory (roughly 17mb in 5.5 compared to 32mb now) for me.

2. Much longer delay in bootup compared to 5.5

3. Can crash computer if you don't want to let ZA do everything automatically

example: If I want to configure svchost.exe myself, ZA asks me if the OS firewall will let crss.exe communicate with it......I can't say yes because it crashes. So I have to let that go automatically and allow it to have "3 bar" trust.

4. When I check to allow a program to start everytime, it repeats that question 3 or 4 times. Unlike ZA 5.5 <-QUOTE}

As far as (1) goes, it uses more memory in 6 because there are now more features with the triple OS firewall and so on. Not surprising at all.

Never experienced (2), (3) or (4) here though. ZA Pro has always worked very well for me, no troubles at all.

[TraCKs]

I know some ppl might of had probs with the update to ZA 6 but, my version of ZA Pro.6 runs great!.....

[Jazzie1]

Dito! :)

Regards
Jazzie

[Mem1]

Like others, ZAP 6 is working fine here with a clean install. :)

[Hyperion]

I ve just installed ZAF and on my pc it's the best version i ve seen for years.No BSODs,no memory leaks and for the first time i see it even works with edonkey with no problem.I almost can't beleive it!It's a bit heavy on CPU and RAM,but finally after years,i think i found a ZAF that i can keep installed ;D

[beetlejuice69]

I found a few minor bugs in ZA 6 Pro but nothing that would cause me to remove it. They`ll have it fixed I`m sure in the next update. None of the bugs cause any crashes or BSOD`s so I can live with that.

[Syncman9]

I've been trialing Zone Alarm Pro 6, and it's the first firewall I've seriously considered keeping. I've tried most of the others, Kerio, Sygate, Outpost, Jetico to name but a few.

All of them, have had something that I couldn't work with/live with, where as Zone Alarm Pro seems to have everything I want.

[TraCKs]

There is a new ZA update thats in beta testing now, that will hopfully fix a lot of the probs that some ppl are experiancing. The new release will also have the option to turn off the OS firewall if you want, personally i think the OS Firewall is great... :)

[rawr]

You guys should check out Filseclab Personal Firewall Pro. Pretty straight-forward firewall..rule-based (..kinda like Kerio I believe) and best of all, its free! ;D I left ZoneAlarm Pro for this firewall and I don't see myself going back to ZoneLabs. Their software has gone downhill ever since version 4.5+ ;D

[Kye-U]

I don't like security software companies that release an 'all-in-one solution' such as ZoneLabs, Norton, etc.

They should just stick with what they do best. ZoneAlarm 6 now has spyware and virus detection capabilities? What good is that? What if you download a trojan and it was programmed to shut ZoneAlarm down? Your computer would have no virus, firewall or antispyware...

Go with layered.

[bigc73542]

Have had no problems with it at all, it runs very well here.

[Mr.]

I've used various versions/builds of ZA since about 2000 and haven't noticed any appreciable degradation in the quality of v6.

However, kind of like insurance, you don't know for sure until...

Boot speed is as I've always had with XP.

[Jazzie1]

{QUOTE-> Go with layered. <-QUOTE}

I agree! Since I use ZAP 6.0 to manage bandwidth only, (in tandem with CHX-I) I turn off all the unecessary bloat. and just leave the component/program control. It frees up a lot of resources that way... I use a layered approach for a seperate AV/AT ect...

Regards
Jazzie