Does ZA firewall do its job?

Discussion in 'other firewalls' started by rOadToIS, Mar 10, 2009.

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  1. rOadToIS

    rOadToIS Registered Member

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    I heard some people criticizing ZoneAlarm's Free Firewall on its lack of protection.
    So, does it do its job? Does it provide solid protection: preventing hackers in public area/home?
     
  2. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    Their criticism was probably directed at it's relative lack of outbound coverage compared to ZA Pro or perhaps Comodo or others. In terms of inbound protection, it is fine, and just as good as ZA Pro or any others.
     
  3. rOadToIS

    rOadToIS Registered Member

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    Thanks for the reply!:)
     
  4. act8192

    act8192 Registered Member

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  5. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    I agree with act8192. As a long time user of ZA Free Firewall version 5.5.094.000, nothing gets out of my PC unless I say so. It's shut down so tight (programs need to ask for my permission every time) that it squeals like a pig if any outbound attempt is ever tried.

    To date, my oldie but goodie ZA has blocked 141,380 access attempts and 2,777 of those blocked intrusions have been highly rated. And while numbers might not mean anything, my WinXP machine continues to purr like a kitten. :) Thanks ZA!
     
  6. progress

    progress Guest

    But there is no HIPS component in ZA Free, am I right? I think Comodo or PC Tools give you more protection in this area :rolleyes:
     
  7. Tarq57

    Tarq57 Registered Member

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    A firewall is a firewall. HIPS is something else. Some firewall manufacturers have included a HIPS (or HIPS-like) component in their firewall. Which technically, I suppose, makes it more suite-like.
     
  8. IAmAsean

    IAmAsean Registered Member

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    Does ZA firewall do its job?

    It does. I was never a believer of these "leak tests" and I don't think that will change even in the far future. Leak tests do not make sense to me.

    Keeping the baddies off and out of your machine was never the job of a Firewall to begin with.

    What does a Firewall do?
    1. Packet Filtering 2. Application Gateway 3. Circuit-Level Gateway 4. Proxy Server.

    For malicious codes to land onto your machine must bypass, not the Firewall, but your other seucirty applications (HIPS, antivirus, antimalware and antispyware).

    There is the reason why many standalone Firewalls in the past have now bundled themselves with antivirus and antimalware modules and of course, HIPS.
     
  9. progress

    progress Guest

    Why doesn't ZA Free disable the XP firewall? :(
     
  10. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    ance, the old versions never disabled the XP firewall, you had to do it manually. I don't know about the newer versions but perhaps you want to check the ZA Free User Guides page for your particular version.
     
  11. Enigm

    Enigm Registered Member

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  12. fax

    fax Registered Member

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    ... and here we are again... I think I predicted a FUD a year on ZA calling home... and magically here we are again... this time we have even the mossad... LOL

    Please update yourself, ZA calling home was a bug fixed LOOOONG time ago, discussed here too... more than once... o_O

    Fax
     
  13. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Registered Member

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    has this thread has taken a turn into intolerance?
     
  14. gery

    gery Registered Member

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    I am using the pro version with spyware turned off and it is runing very well here alongside Avira Premium . very happy so far. The latest release is improved over the previous .light and not so intrusive. Better then anything i have used .
     
  15. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Registered Member

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    I have current licenses for both ZA-AV and ZA-Pro; running ZA-AV at this time.
     
  16. gery

    gery Registered Member

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    How is ZAV running
     
  17. NNard

    NNard Registered Member

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    I am currently running the latest version of ZA-AV along with SAS Pro on VISTA without any problems.

    NNard:D
     
  18. Page42

    Page42 Registered Member

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    ZoneAlarm first introduced its OSFirewall, a "behavior-based strategy to block malware and spyware", in mid-2005. I run it enabled inside ZoneAlarmPro. It alerts to lots of suspicious activities, depending of course on the level a user sets it at. It's a strong add-on component, a "kernel-level firewall (that) monitors suspicious activity affecting the operating system, programs and files, and disables destructive programs". I'm glad it's there. :thumb:
     
  19. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Registered Member

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    ZA-AV was upgraded recently to 8.0.298.000 and works very well for me.

    According to my saved install files, I have upgraded ZAAV several times now, although I know there were some prior to these that I did not retain:

    08/27/2008 zaAvSetup_80_015_000_en.exe
    10/16/2008 zaAvSetup_80_020_000_en.exe
    11/06/2008 zaAvSetup_80_059_000_en.exe
    02/23/2009 zaAvSetup_80_298_000_en.exe
     
  20. Page42

    Page42 Registered Member

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    I keep the Anti-spyware component turned off too. I think that avast! is adequate enough versus spyware in real-time. Every now and then I update the defs and run a scan, but it's essentially a feature I keep turned off. :)
     
  21. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Registered Member

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    I run the stuff listed here, and now and again run SAS, MBAM, HJT, and GMER, but have never found anything other than a false positive running any Anti-Spyware scanner.
     
  22. Page42

    Page42 Registered Member

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    This is a pretty cool feature...
     

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