ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall and Comodo Firewall

Installed ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall, shut off firewall (I was hoping vsmon.exe would no longer run after restart because of it's high memory usage, but alas, it remains). Installed Comodo Free Firewall because I like the Defense+ feature and it's always been a top notch FW in my opinion. (Firewall:Safe mode,Defense+:Safe mode). All is running smooth and well, despite high numbers of vsmon:



From another thread:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=323189&highlight=zonealarm kaspersky

I agree. Despite the numbers, my system is running fine.

From PC Magazine article:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/c/0,2...ww.pcmag.com/article2/c/0,2817,2403843,00.asp

Antivirus Lab Results
Checking the independent labs for ZoneAlarm results is a bit confusing. Virus Bulletin is the only lab that regularly tests ZoneAlarm. Even then, over the past four years ZoneAlarm has participated in just five VB100 tests and passed four of them.

Why this lack of love? Because the antivirus component in ZoneAlarm is licensed from another well-known security company, so most of the labs simply test the original. Check Point officially does not identify its antivirus partner, but you will find dozens of DLLs and other support files whose digital signature, copyright notice, and internal company name point to Kaspersky Lab. Coincidence? You decide.

The labs just love Kaspersky, giving it almost universally high marks. For a rundown on the major independent labs and their tests, see see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Using Eicar Zip file download, I scanned it using context (right-click) scan. Of all AV's I've tried, none has ever cleaned out the inside of a zip file; they've simply deleted the entire zip file. What if you had something important zipped with an infected file and your AV automatically deleted the zip file? You could get it back from the quarantined area if you knew it was there. I like the AV in zonealarm free antivirus and firewall so far, but I'm hoping for more comments from expert testers, which I'm definitely not.

What's in the EICAR zip file:


Context scan:


Scan completed:


Zip file still there, but empty of infected file:

 

I am afraid your combination of ZA + Comodo will give you trouble and instability since kernel drivers in ZA will load even if you turn OFF parts of it. So, expect one day or another some weird behaviour that you may not easily link back to ZA/Comodo.

Best to get rid of ZA and keep Comodo or vice versa. Up to you

 

I never thought of that. Even though ZA has always been mainly thought of as a firewall, I thought I could use Comodo FW and get the Kaspersky AV for free using ZA's AV, which seems to be Kaspersky. I guess I'm just too cheap to purchase KAV licenses for all my PC's.

 

Oh, yes the drivers are still installed and are still running even though the firewall is not running. This is why you should never install two AVs or firewalls.

 

So if you can only get the AV and FW together in a 'suite', such as Outpost Security Suite Free, ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall, or Roboscan Internet Security Free, for some examples, you should only use them as they are, even though they all have a 'switch' to disable the firewall?

I was hoping for some flexibility with them, combining them with Comodo FW or Private FW. I know I can always use the AAA group (Avast/Avira/AVG) along with Comodo, but when I read about ZA using Kaspersky and Roboscan using BitDefender, it seemed like a good chance to get some top AV's for free. I wasn't crazy about ZA FW, and Roboscan FW seemed OK, but very simple.

Back to the drawing board?

 

Like Fax stated use one or the other. I found the ZA FW+AV very good but the vsmon did take up a bunch of ram. Comodo on the other hand, uses much less ram but I'm not crazy about the AV part of it. You can use the FW and Defense portion of Comodo with a standalone free AV. Avast, Avira, MSE, Panda, AVG etc etc.... all offer good AV for free.

Ice

 

What are you guys getting for Comodo IS in I/Os and virtual RAM usage? I'm wondering because I'm using Roboscan AND Comodo AV together. Seems to be fine. No sluggish movement or freezes.

I haven't tried ZoneAlarm AV together, but I heard that Kaspersky wasn't compatible with Comodo's AV, so that's why I didn't give it a go.

 

That was the next thing I was going to try, Roboscan AV with FW switched off, plus Comodo FW, but the above posts suggest not to do that, so I'll try a standalone AV as reccomended. I had used Avast/Comodo for a long time, but found things were getting a bit sluggish in browsing lately, although somewhere there was a post about how Avast set up a different port than the usual for browsers and how to prevent that---maybe also some way to stop it from scanning every web page or something. Not really sure what it was, but if I can get that straight then I'll definitely stick with Avast/Comodo combo. I always felt very secure with them.

BTW, thanks for the helpful replies Fax, KelvinW4, and IceCube1010--you all probably saved me a lot of grief down the road when the BSOD's or other strange happenings would drive me crazy.

 

You're welcome and good luck!