ZAP or OP

I would like to ask for opinions on the latest ZAP and Outpost Pro . Only these two . I ask because it has been awhile since I used and even tested ZAP . I hear good and bad . I know all there is to know about OP . Still would like to know who chose what and why . Many thanks to you in advance . I am trying to figure out if I should test ZAP again . Mostly , I am hearing from my inner circle that the latest version has gone back a few steps .
Please give your opinions here .
Thank you again for your input

 

I personally didn't like ZAP because of its GUI and incompatibilities with some other programs, but OP seems to because more unstable and slow down a bit the web browse...

I'm using CHX and I'm very happy with it, but I have to change some rules for my needs...

 

ZAP is quite good, actually offers complete protection right out of the box, has no issues with different hardware of OS, the only thing is that the privacy features and anti virus monitoring is totally un-necessary.

 

Hi,

ZAP is great on the Outboun control of software, component and such very powerfull. The Inbound works like a charm and makes it easy to add rules for various things you might be running on the system.

I would turn off the anti-spyware, Anti-virus monitor, E-mail protection, Privacy and would set the Log file accordingly.

The outbound app filter can be set to high and Outbound on high also.

Been running this setup for little over 4months.

Regards,
fluxgfx.com

Total memory usage does not go above 17mb. (VSMON and ZCLIENT). Outpost uses a little more ressources then that on my machine. But let you know that memory usage and CPU usage is different from system to system.

 

I like and actually own both. On my system, ZAP starts out at about 17mb ram total, and after a day or so can climb up to 22mb. Outpost ram use varies anywhere from 15mb to 19mb, but on mine never went above 19mb ram use. So they are roughly similar on my machine anyway. Cpu usage was nil for both.

They both have component control and seem to do a good job of catching when program components change. I would have to say that perhaps ZAPs OS firewall might be a little more effective than Outpost and it's various plugins. Both seem to have a few features that I would call unnecessary, for example in ZAP, the AV monitoring and privacy stuff which Flux mentioned above, and in Outpost, I consider the DNS cache unnecessary. Your OS already has a DNS cache, so why do we need another one? Also there are programs like Treewalk which do a much better job at it.

I think it is much easier to create and maintain rules in Outpost. ZAP has never been easy in this regard. Quite counterintuitive in fact, for me anyway.

In general I think the 2 are both pretty good firewalls. I suppose it often boils down to which of the two interfaces you prefer. Or perhaps which features you want or need. I like the Outpost interface better, but I think I slighly prefer the ZAP features.

So there's my 2 cents...

 

Kerodo .
Give me a dime's worth . ( kidding ) The privacy features you and Arup say are unneeded bothers me . I like referrer blocking and cookie control . Along with javascript and active x protection . Many people dismiss these . I do not . I see these as important addins . I am glad they both incorporated them into their products . There is no question , in my mind , which is better . So , I agree with you Kerodo , that each has it's strengths and weaknesses . I was just wondering what has changed in ZAP since the 5.5 days . ZAP 5.5 was no where close to being as good as OP . Alot of time has passed since then though . I saw ZAP slow turn into crap . Each release got worse . I left them when 5 came out but , still tested them . It got to the point where I was wasting my time because it was so bad .
So , Kerodo . I think I might test it out and see how it does . Many thanks for the info from EVERYONE . Very helpful and very much appreciated !

 

Actually, only one early 5x version of ZAP had problems, subsequent versions ran like a dream, and speaking of crap, Outpost too is responsible for releasing bug laden crap and leaving it to the paying customer to test it at their own peril so Zone Labs is not alone in that.

The version 6x however is their best offering till date in terms of outbound protection.

 

Well, I am not much to worry about cookies and referrer blocking myself, so that doesn't impress me much. I use Opera here, so I don't worry about ActiveX, and I also use the Opera Ad Filter which does a good job on the ads and junk. So for me, I feel that this stuff is not needed in the firewall. I realize Outpost has the ad and content filtering, but in most cases, I can find simpler and possibly better equivalents for use with the browser already. Opera and Firefox both have some good ad blocking extensions/addins. I can see however, where an IE user might want these features more. I personally would like to see the firewall kept streamlined and simple as possible. Both ZAP and Outpost suffer a little from bloat if you ask me.

 

Also those of us who like to use Treewalk DNS face problems with Outpost's own DNS plug in, Outpost in iteself is very good SPI and app filter firewall with rule making interface far superior to ZAP, the other doo dads, I can well live without.

 

I've used Treewalk with several versions of Outpost. Simply deactivate or remove the DNS plugin. Works fine.

 

As QBgreen said, in Outpost you can deactivate or remove any of the plugins (making OP running better and lower on resources - on my machine ~17MB). So I would avoid calling it bloated. In OP I use only attack detection plugin, as the rest of plugins duplicate activity of other apps and their plugins/options.

I don't know ZA and if you can simply remove useless options and components in it.

 

In ZAP you can fortunately turn various features 'off' if you don't need them, so that's similar to de-activating Outpost plugins I guess. It's good that both allow you to do that. Whether that actually effects ram usage or not, I don't know and have not tested it myself.

 

ZAP gives you the option of turning everything off, including firewall SPI as well as OS firewall and every other extra features, no issues there.

 

OP with all plugins is ~24 MB on my system (can't remember CPU utilisation). The most RAM hungry plugin seems to be AntiSpyware one. With attack detection plugin only OP is a bit above 17 MB (max 20 MB over the time) and 0% CPU utilisation reaching 1,5 - 3,0 % while some internet actions are taken (launching browser, etc).