Is ZA Pro a good firewall

Hi,
It does not pass all the leak tests.
You know, in a way, these tests are a bit of a problem. Do you know why? Because to run leak tests - you need to download them and then execute them. That's two active steps on user's behalf. So doing these tests can be nice. But in reality, you will not sure what will happen when after you download and run some executable. If you DO know what you're doing, leaktests are not important. More sort of a decoration.
The question is can firewall defend itself - after you deliberately download stuff, past your anti-virus, anti-trojan and anti-spyware scanners, and then run it on your machine. And if you do run it, just normally, and it asks you to connect - will you let it.
Let's say you downloaded some utility called freedshw.exe. You think this is good for you. And then it needs updates. Will you let it connect - let's say the same way you let microsoft anti-spyware connect? You will, because you think it's ok - and the AT / AS / AV did not flag it, because it's a brand new mutation. But you know this proggie is ok. So you let it connect, why not. The program doesn't need to try to disable your firewall. It can simply ask you first. It may try to be brutal only after you deny its access.
Now, if you come to the situation you need to block dll injections and such, you're prolly not doing something right.
And there's an ever simpler solution to that.
You get horribly infected - unplug the cable from the wall. No dll injection, hijacking or anything can beat that. And then format your mistakes and start over.
Firewall needs to be easily understandable and configurable, protect from external (inbound) mainly and give application control to the user. It's mainly a gateway into the machine. It's not supposed to stop applications and dlls.That's a new thing to make firewalls sound more interesting. Primarily, it's there to stop inbound traffic.
Many people will tell you controlling outbound is not as successful or important. Furthermore, even if your firewall can pass all leak tests - your machine can still be infected with 644 programs that give you 100% cpu time and you wait 20 min to start up. Only because you clicked yes.
ZoneAlarm is the best for people who don't even need to know or bother what leaktests are. You want a perfect nightmare of a firewall - 200% configurations? Go for Jetico. Excellent firewall. Only it's easier to write a PhD thesis than configure it. But it's the best there is.
Mrk

 

Simply not true. I know alot of about these tests etc. and I still use ZA. ZA while user-friendly, still allows an expert to make the configurations he wants.

 

Hi,

Unhappy, you're looking at it the wrong way:
If you are not expert, ZA is good for you.
If you are expert, ZA is good for you.
BUT:
If you're not expert, Jetico is not good for you.
If you're expert, Jetico is good for you.

ZA is EQUALLY good for those who know nothing about leaktests and wanna surf out of the box (without as much as a single custom rule, just 4-5 prompts) and those who want to make advanced rules.
What other firewall compares in its simplicity to ZA and gives an amateur user the all-around protection he / she needs?

Mrk