Online Armor or PC Tools Firewall Plus to replace ZA

I know someone else who is using ZA Free 6.1.744.001 and they also claimed that they had no problems with their connection after running the MS Windows DNS fix update. It seems as though that version of ZAF is not effected by the update the way most later ZA versions are. That always was one of my favorite version releases of ZAF.

 

Yes, version 6.1.744.001 definitely seems to survive the MS update just fine. While things can always change, at this point I'm still very happy with it...

 

It could be a Security Hole in Zone Alarm.. is why it might have been changed in the newer versions. You may want to check if it is or is not a hole that people can get thur

 

I have used and setup some less knowledgeable friends of mine with PC Tools Firewall. It is a good stand alone firewall based off of LnS. I recommend it as one of the better free firewalls for novice users. For added protection while still keeping it very user friendly I recommend allowing it to install along with threatfire (an option in the firewall install).

 

I would also recommend PC tools for the people who need to know they have Firewall, but I would never recommend PC tools for the people who really need Firewall. Just because PC tools can be easily tricked.

 

For the past eight months I've got OA running on my lappy and Comodo running on my desktop. They both make the minimum amount of noise. Nothing intrusive. That's what a HIPS is supposed to do: ask you if you really do want to run an .exe or allow this or that to have access to the web (though most of the latter is automated by my choice to allow trusted programs to access the web).

What it boils down to, for me, is that OA is simpler in gui terms, much less in the way of tinkering with the guts of the complex application (actually a "suite", particularly with AV+ antivirus, which I have). Comodo has more "granularity" to get involved with the goings on of how the app does its thing. In the end, however, they both do virtually the same thing: give you control over what comes in and goes out of your computer, and what gets executed.

I cannot comment on PC Tools; haven't tried it.

Sam

 

I certainly can't say you're wrong because I'm not privy to the changes ZA makes. I'm reasonably sure that I would probably never get a straight answer (or any answer) from ZA because support for old versions ends when a new one is released. But evidence is pretty clear that the way DNS was handled in ZA was changed with the version immediately following 6.1.744.001.

We could all speculate whether or not the changes plugged a hole or whether they just changed their methods (I read somewhere that 6.1.744.001 was the last build that worked on older versions of Windows.)

What ever the reason, I'm comfortable with it. I run with my DNS service disabled anyway as I run a large managed HOSTS file and that's the typical recommendation for users that do so. When that becomes part of the equation it doesn't really matter if ZA has me covered or not. With DNS turned off, my risk of DNS poisoning (on my PC) is zero...