How effective is ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus with Firewall 2013?

It was always there:
AV Test => Check Point: ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall

Latest Test on Windows 7: 29th July 2013
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=132354
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/mayjun-2013/
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Windows 8, Jan/Feb 2013
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=130570
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-8/janfeb-2013/
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Windows XP, Mar/Apr 2013
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=131429
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-xp/marapr-2013/

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http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/producer/check-point/
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-xp/marapr-2013/

 

On latest AV Test results, not so good.....

Windows 8, Jan-Feb/2013 = Protection Score: 3.5/6.0
Windows XP, Mar-Apr/2013 = Protection Score: 2.5/6.0

Windows 7, 06-2013 = Protection Score: 1.5/6.0
http://www.av-test.org/no_cache/en/tests/test-reports/?tx_avtestreports_pi1[report_no]=132354
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/mayjun-2013/
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http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/producer/check-point/

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https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2260188&postcount=9
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2260900&postcount=61

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Also:

 

Yes, it is dropping very fast... Was pretty good when it was first released.

 

This.

 

I'm not sure why it did so well in the beginning, but I am confident that the 24 hr update cycle damages it's zero day detection.

 

I personally never found anything about thid suit enticing. Not even the fact that its kaspersky. The one update a day without znything to back it up (cloud, hueristics) is like shooting yourself in ths foot IMO not to mention thd custom download/scan interface is quite frankly annoying and many other things, to many to mention tonight.

 

1 update only once per 24 hours is stupid these days. I mean it's freakin year 2013, not 1995... Most malware goes live and dies before most of these AV's even get an update for anything...

 

i think the enticements are (1) excellent firewall, which includes (2) light or smart (maybe dumb when it fails) HIPS for those that don't want every exe to be blocked until allowed (only exe that behave suspiciously), and (3) it runs very smoothly (little system slowdown) on some systems, including on VMs I tested it on.

It's too bad the AV component is crap, but I may still end up installing this on my actual system because the firewall is good (number 1 criteria) and because it seems to run smoothly for me (at least on VM).

 

Please allow a few months for AV-TEST as the version 11 suffered some kaspersky bugs that are fixed on latest build issued end of June. So, first realistic results should come in starting from September or may be even August.

 

Ok, guess it's not that great after all. I don't see how AV test results can go up and down so much, if you go by that, then it is what it is.. Once a day updates doesn't bother me though, who cares?

 

I second that!

 

As a free AV/Firewall suite, it updates once a day - however you can manually update it as often you want. Which is not a problem!

 

Like i have time raping the update button al day long just for the damn app to do the job it should do automatically MORE often.

avast! is also free and it updates every 4 minutes. Their excuse is completely invalid. And i'm not even expecting the same frequency but at least freaking check for updates every 4 hours like avast! used to few years ago before the Streaming Updates were available.

And the same goes for MSE, AVIRA and AVG. I just don't get it how can they be so lazy and ignorant in this regard.

 

Because theyre not getting the $ flow from free users.which still to me is no excuse for less than frewuent.updates. Maybe i dont have a eye for business though

 

OT:

Not anymore.

fyi:

Every 6 hours it's the default setting.
You can add (automated) update jobs as much as you wish (every hour / every10 minutes / every minute).

 

Finally someone has woken up. 6 hours is not ideal, but still light years better than crappy 24 hour cycle...

 

I rape the update button 3 times a day!

 

Lol

 

To "fix" the update problem with this prpgram, couldnt you just simply make a .bat file to run the updater automatically at certain intervals everyday?

 

Nope, I don't think it is possible as the scheduler is completely separated from windows scheduler.

 

it may be possible using wm_command found through using windows detective.

 

Let's work together, maybe we can find a workaround to get more automatic updates.

 

Well, if you really like the software then just buy a license and you will get automatic updates down to every 30 minutes.

 

You're assuming that the ZA people actually update their databases more often than once or twice a day... you might do an update check every hour, but nothing would come of it because there is nothing to get...

 

Actually there is . Depends on the day... sometimes every 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1:30h... 2hours... Just an example for today (Saturday).

AV/update,2013/08/24,13:38:04 +2:00 GMT,,Update Install Completed,Auto,Version: 1125664832
AV/update,2013/08/24,14:08:36 +2:00 GMT,,Update Install Completed,Auto,Version: 1125673024
AV/update,2013/08/24,15:38:42 +2:00 GMT,,Update Install Completed,Auto,Version: 1125675776
AV/update,2013/08/24,17:08:38 +2:00 GMT,,Update Install Completed,Auto,Version: 1125678496