The latest ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite release is 10.1.056.000.

Also this version has bugs, for example no warings are given if a program wants to connect the internet.

 

On default settings ZA does not ask by design.
It is set to autolearn. Try this:

SmartDefense: Manual
Application control: MAX

Firefox internet access


OS firewall


and this is the effect on Microsoft IE by disabling "Enable Microsoft Catalogue utilization" (you need to reboot for the change to take effect).

IE and trusted zone


IE Internet Access


End result: I cannot reproduce it here. Sorry
Suggestions: Try to reboot for the changes to take effect, remove the entries from ZA application control for those applications that were originally granted permissions.

 

Does this applies to free version as well maybe?

 

Probably not, one user at the ZA forum tried both retail and free version and reported that only the free version has this problem.

 

The latest ZoneAlarm Security Line is: 10.1.079.000
22 December 2011

 

I am running ZAES 10.1.079.000. It seems to be running ok. For most of my systems I use a combination of ZAES, SAS and MBAM. The toolbar doesn't seem to be working yet with Firefox 9.01. for this latest version of ZAES. It has been working fine with IE8. I hope they are able to update the browser toolbar soon for FF 9.01 compatibility. The good news is that the brower virtualization feature does seem to be working ok or at least it appears to be working in this latest version with FF 9.01.

There is one problem I encountered with all the previous releases of ZAES 10.x. There seemed to be a possible memory leak problem or some other issue where the longer I ran my system (with ZAES running) without shutting down or rebooting it (for days or longer than a week) then the slower my internet connection download throughput would become. I run my system 24/7 so this issue pertains to me more than others who would turn off their system frequently. I did find a temporary fix. When I shut down ZAES and then restarted the program my internet connection would magically speed back up. I noticed that the amount of slowdown with my internet connection throughput seemed to be directly proportional to how long ZAES ran before being shut down and restarted. While it was annoying to have to shut down and restart ZAES it only takes about a minute to to this. Up until this version I have been doing about once or twice a week.

I am not certain if the cause of this problem was an issue only on my system or if others had been reporting this problem in previous versions of ZAES 10.x. There could even be a conflict with SAS or MBAM that is causing the problem or it even possibly be a hardware driver conflict only on my systems running ZAES but it is difficult to tell. I didn't have this problem with the previous ZAES v9.x. I reported this problem to CP support over a month ago along with data logging for diagnosis so the developers should be aware of it. This issue could have been specific to my system setup running Windows XP SP3 with SAS and MBAM but all I know is that it has been a nagging issue for me. I don't know if the latest version has that problem on my system because I haven't had it installed long enough to find out.

With the exception of that one issue overall I do like the latest ZAES 10.x. I like the core long time features of the ZA firewall. It seems to run efficiently. It uses very few resources on my almost ten year old AMD Athlon XP based hardware and ZAES in version 10.x and in earlier versions it has been very effective at protecting my systems against malware.

 

Indeed current version only support Firefox 8.X.X. Normally a new build will need to be released for Firefox 9 compatibility. This crazy FF updating is causing problems to ZA developers and their sandbox that due to its design (low level integration) need to be revised every time. May be sometime in January? No idea.

I don't know if the tip below will works on 9 but you could try to update the ZA toolbar.

Turn Browser Virtualization Off.Under Extensions click on top right " Tool for all add-ons " Click Check for Updates and update ZoneAlarm Security Community Toolbar to 3.8.1.0. Restart Firefox when asked.Then close Firefox.Turn Browser Virtualization On.

Thanks "Sky Soldiers" at ZA forum for the above!

On the memory leak, I honestly don't know. It does not seem to be a common issue judging from the user forum posts. Of course, bugs are normally channeled via live chat support, so difficult to say.

Cheers,
Fax

 

And again the new version isn't free from bugs.

And the forum of Zone Alarm is even worse

 

i am using the new extreme and no issues so far
w 7 home premium

 

I still haven't really been able to tell if the memory leak/connection slow down issue exists on my Windows XP SP3 based system with the latest version of ZAES 10.1.079.000. It wouldn't surprise me if it was still there. If and when I verify that it is still a problem as it was with previous versions I may post that information.

Update...actually I just ran a test using speedtest.net

Here are some results before... 66ms ping, 10.7 Mb/s down, 4.17 Mb/s up

Here are the results after shutting down and restarting ZAES... 17ms ping, 37.11 Mb/s down, 4.21 Mb/s up.

...The 30+ Mb/s down is consistent with the throughput I should be getting. It is also similar to the down speed I always get with my notebook that is not running ZAES. When I let my main system with ZAES 10.x run for more than a week I have seen it gradually and proportionally go as low as 3 Mb/s down with a ping time of 80 ms or greater...then simply shutting down and restarting ZAES without rebooting the computer yields full speeds one minute later of up to 30+ Mb/s down and 10-20 ms ping again.

Therefore I guess the new version still has that slow down issue on my system. I rebooted about two days ago so this means to get full speed back I have to restart ZAES or my system about twice a week to avoid lag when I require high throughput such as for the smooth streaming of videos. I have tested this for a few months and this problem has persisted on my system running ZAES v10.x that I leave running 24/7. I also verified the problem happens whether I run any version of Firefox or IE8. When ZAES 10.x is disabled it has not been an issue at all. Remember that I am running Windows XP SP3 and also have MBAM and SAS running real time. With ZAES v9.x I never had any of these problems with the same system and also running MBAM and SAS in real time.

I still am open to the possibility that this is a system specific issue or odd conflict with my system(s) running XP SP3. The fact that the amount of internet throughput slowdown seems to be directly proportional to how long ZAES has been running should say something about the nature of the problem. If I have to once again shut down the latest ZAES and restart it once or twice a week to get my normally blazing fast connection back I will continue to use that solution. I would hope at some point that this memory leak/connection slowdown issue does somehow get recognized and resolved if it is not a unique issue.

The Firefox compatibility issues with the browser security toolbar have been ongoing. It's hard to blame the developers when Mozilla put FF on an every six week new release schedule. I like the newer releases of FF but the release schedule has to be driving the developers crazy.

 

I've long been a fan of the ZA fw, but you are right, there are bugs.

Again you are right, the ZA forum is the worst forum on the Internet.

 

This may not be very indicative of a problem in ZA 10, since meanwhile SAS and MBAM have completely re-designed. I would first and foremost try to replicate the problem on clean system to ensure its not related to conflicts with third party software. Also ensure your ZA settings are at default especially permissions to programs. It's not the first time I see conflicts due to blockage of programs in ZA application control.

Cleanup your XP base, this way:

1.) Click Start -> Run
2.) Type MSConfig in the run box and click OK
3.) Once in MSConfig, click the Startup Tab
4.) Remove the checks from everything except ZAtray and forcefield
5.) Click the Services Tab
6.) Place a check in "Hide All Microsoft Services"
7.) Now remove checks from everything other than TrueVector Internet
Monitor and ForceField, and click OK.
8.) Restart your computer

NOTE: You can place your computer back into a normal startup process by going back into msconfig and choosing the Normal Startup option on the General tab.

Now ensure you have no third party software running that resisted the UNchecking in MSCONFIG and make your test by running the system as you did before.

If you still experience the problem then try to update the network drivers. I have seen this problems on defective software managing the network card.

Finally if you have still the same problem reporting it again to ZA via the official support. You may want to turn ON the logging and replicate the issue so to be ready to upload the dumps to ZA development team.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Fax

 

I appreciate that information fax. The problem is that I already spent a month diagnosing and narrowing down the problem directly to ZAES v10.x. Looking at it in hindsight the problem started to show up soon after converting from ZAES v9 to v10.

Unless you leave your computer on 24/7 for up to a week or more at a time and unless you noticed the gradual increase in choppiness streaming online video feeds then you probably would never know it existed. I challenge anyone running ZAES v10 (with the browser security toobar and browser virtualization features enabled) to restart their system freshly booted...run speedtest.net and record the result...use their system continuously for up to a week without restarting...then record another result from speedtest.net and compare the second test results with the first. Make sure no one else is accessing your router and internet connection through your DSL or Cable modem when running both tests. Run both tests at around the same time of the day to eliminate variances of connection speed from your internet provider.

Note that this is NOT a system slowdown problem. I have not noticed my overall system speed to be effected at all by this problem. This ONLY effects the internet connection speed and it is directly related to how long ZAES v10 is allowed to run and be used. The longer ZAES runs the slower the connection gradually becomes until it slows to a crawl. I have verified this in tests for months. I even turned off SAS and MBAM real time components at one point but I didn't remove them or stop the basic programs from starting up using the msconfig method.

Before I found out that this was a problem relating to ZAES v10 I thought I had bad hardware like an aging NIC card so I changed it to a Gigabit NIC and bought a new Gigabit router. That didn't solve the problem. It only made the problem seem more apparent. When ZAES is not running the problem does not exist at all in any way shape or form. Logically I am willing to admit that it could be my system(s) but I also seemed to experience similar connection slowdown issues on another Windows XP SP3 based system running similar hardware. However on that other system I cannot verify it as well as on my main system I use because that business computer is at another location and it has a slower internet connection and it often gets rebooted once a week.

Once again... I can't completely rule out that this is specific to my computer running my exact software. There likley could be a conflict with ZAES v10 and my system(s) running Windows XP SP3. I did every clean uninstall and clean install of ZAES that I ever saw posted in the ZA forum...and used the instructions from CP chat support to uninstall and install. This problem only exists with ZAES v10 running and goes away completely (until it gradually slows down the connection again) when ZAES v10 is shut down and restarted...without having to shut down or reboot the entire computer.

 

Strange, also my system is never turned off but I can't see this, however I left XP long time ago. This is why I have suggested the msconfig whenever you will have the time to test. This is not to test system slow down but mitigate hanging of connections (incorrect closing of open connections). It may lead to surprising results. Also do not trust 100% speed test via the web, change them, use your provider tests (if they have them). Thanks

Edit: you should monitor the changes in available RAM to programs and CPU load. This may be also indicative of a problem linked to a decreased through output. Also with TCPview enumerate the connection at the beginning of the test and at the end, I suspect there will be more open/listening connections (XP issue) that the firewall driver is forced to monitor than at the initial test (overload of buffer). Remember that vsmon is like a sponge where all connections will be filtered/examined. Unusual load will be reflected in vsmon although may originate at system level.

 

Thanks again for those suggestions Fax. When I have the extra time I will have to do more testing to see what is going on with my system or if it is system specific with my older Windows XP SP3 setup.

I read a few months back when I was researching about related connection slowdown issues for XP on the internet that there were some old bugs relating to TCP buffering in Windows XP that were related to high speed networking, gigabit hardware, gigabit connections and XP code based third party firewalls. There were supposedly similar problems being reported from several major security software vendors that were showing up and it had to do with conflicts inherent with Windows XP TCP/IP.

Therefore this very well could be a general problem relating to Windows XP on some systems that becomes more noticeable when using much higher speed internet connections for uses such as high speed streaming which is what I have been doing lately. After having 6 Mb/s for years and then moving to faster speeds I am now considering moving my ISP speed tier from 30+ Mb/s to up to 100 Mb/s.

 

Excellent, thank you!