How effective is ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus with Firewall 2013?

I downloaded and installed ZoneAlarm Free AntiVirus with Firewall 2013. The link says it has all the features except support and parental control. Also, the free edition is updated every 24 hrs. as opposed to every hour paid version.

I am using ZoneAlarm for the first time. All I know is that it is from a company named Check Point whose Full Disk Encryption tool is used in my Fortune 100 company.

Has anyone used this anti-virus? How effective it is and how is the detection rate?

 

don't know about it, all I know is that I've never seen it participate in AV Comparatives and AV Test so I cannot trust it.

If you want something free stick to the proven Bitdefender Free Antivirus FTW

 

Detection rate wise, it is decent as it uses Kaspersky's engine. It does participate in AV-Test and the results are pretty good.

The bad? Updates are not hourly, they are once or twice a day, and there may be compatibility issues and/or slowdown.

I would suggest you to give it a try. It's certainly not bad.

 

Zonealarm uses the kaspersky SDK engine and so detection will be top notch despite what others may tell you.
As for updating well you can manually update hourly if you wish but i dont see a problem with 24 hour updates.
MSE users dont complain.
Is it really such an inconvenience just to press update.??
Give it a try.Im going to in the future.

 

http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=124529

 

That is quite impressive..

 

that IS excellent for a Free solution

I guess you can go with it if it doesn't slow down your PC who cares about updates once a day is good enough

 

It's very good and with pretty alike protection rates as Kaspersky (their tech partner Link) according to av-test.org. Just they drop a bit on protection in the last nov/dec results but as you can see there in previous months, ZA does provide consistent high protection rates

By the way, remember you can always do manual signature updates anytime you like

 

Very good, but I had problems with slow loading videos in the browser.

 

I didn't have any problem with slow loading videos.

 

i believe the slowdowns are more obvious in the paid and especially the Extreme version which includes the virtualization feature . This gives some slow downs in my experience . I have been using it on and of and it is pretty strong. The free uses the same engine and features and the only problem one might find is the automatic hourly update. Still you can do it manually as often as you wish so it is not a big down side. Anyways it is a matter of personal choise and preference .
I like it and advice it to friends

 

One update a day keeps no malware away.

 

I have Mbam Pro, so I'm not worried.

My sister uses MSE and she doesn't any problem. It's once a day, too.

Both can be manually updated. No problem.

 

BTW, the fw is kept up to date.

 

Plus the AV incorporates a behavior blocker like Mamutu making it an excellent all round value!

 

The free version provides good protection, I just don't use it because the program itself is a lot heavier than others I've used/tested, plus definition updates aren't as frequent as I would like them to be.

 

Zip,
Are you running MBAM in real time? Thanks.

 

Aren't there some ads in this free suite?

 

Yes, I am running Mbam in real time along side ZA antivirus.

 

Zip,
I installed zonealarm free and mbam pro and the computer would freeze on start up, so I had to remove mbam pro. Have you taken any special steps to prevent this or do you not have both scheduled to start on start up? Thanks.

 

exclude them maybe?

 

I have not taken any special steps. Everything starts up with the computer.

What other security programs do you have running?

 

I did try adding exclusions to both programs but it didn't help. I use google chrome browser with a lua on xp. I currently have a trial using webroot antivirus and mbam pro. I would prefer to use mbam with another program that has some type of firewall.

I have used zonealarm paid for 4 years and did not have trouble with mbam pro until the last year. I never had one issue concerning malware during this entire time. And I had no slowdowns (except during long antivirus updates). Maybe mbam pro works better on windows 7. Thanks for your replies, zip and KelvinW4. I might try again in the future.

 

How effective are your answers to the firewall and behavior control prompts?

The AV is probably good, since it uses Kaspersky technology; and the application is very user friendly IMO.

 

I agree, it should be lighter and 2-3 automatic updates a day would be great.