ZA - To upgrade or not to upgrade

I am running ZA (free) 2.6.362 in conjunction with VisualZone. I have been very happy with their use. I have been following the threads about the new ZA 3 and am wondering (now that some of the dust has settled) whether I should bite the bullet and upgrade. Are the improvements worth the effort. Does it do a better job than ZA 2.6 and VisualZone? Will any of the "improvements" give me any more security than I have now? I have learned that "newer" is not always "better".
Any suggestions

 

Gnostic
I made the mistake of upgrading, and it turned out that it became a big resource hog, I had to wait long periods for startups and shutdowns and ZA was causing it! If i were you I'd keep the old version. Like you said newer isn't always better. If you upgrade, you cannot go back to the old version! Remember, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

plus upgrading is a nightmare the only time its worth the update is if you owen zap then it might be worth updateing but the problem is if you switch to zaf to zap excpect a nightmare in intalling the zap.

 

Sir Blaze,

I have read the threads detailing your nightmare with ZA! I hope that you have gotten everything worked out.

 

yes i finaly did it was due to several zonealarm installs starting as far back as the first zaf to present zap this caused nightmare cause there were like 3 ereg files as well as several old componets and bad regystry keys from old za's

cleaning it out and finding every trace was a nightmare.

ZONE ALARM pro is in my opnione probley the best fire wall how every its uninstalling procedure takes its status dowen by 2 points if there was a scale from 1 to 5.

it does have some bugs but thats expected with any fire wall.

for example if your on dial up on 56k you might notice a few things that you probabley had no clue of but here goes.

In some cases zone alarm pro works to well this causes problems on dial up.

if you have aol 7.0 or even 6.0 you might notice you cant connect to the internet the very first time you try to connect.

but you will always connect on the second time this is probably due to zap learning mode in testing the Icmp Protocol along side with udp and 1 tcp flag basicly these problems acure.

1.will not connect on dial up first time

2.im aol stand alone instant messenger and aol internal mesenger wont load( means budy list wont load or the aol intant messenger application stand alone will not connect or if it does the talking on aim feature will give you the if you and a buddy are behind difrent fire walls typical message box its due to this.)

3 .your replys on such forums at wilders wont post correctly you get web page not found or not responding therefor you post does not go threw.

4.when clicking on several pages moving threw the web fast you will get perty much a service odf denial effect when none of the web pages load correctly you get page 404 not found or page not responding no matter what site you go to.

solution?
1.first off call aol and make sure you have the best dial up number in your local area sometimes that stupit auto numbers in your area isnt the best number for conecting to the internet.

have the aol guy or woman guide you in puting locale dial up conections in manualy find the one that connects the first time and move that one to the top when dialup the internet.

after you done the albolve and found a good 1 dial up local connection first try number go ahead and disconect and close aol start up zone alarm pro go to the alerts and logs and hit clear.

keep zone alarm pro open or hideing in task bar now dial up aol when it gets to 4 click on zone alam you will see new alerts poping in a icmp alert

right click on it and add to zone name it i usealy put a 1# and just name them that way like 123 typ thing

now you will get a udp alert program aol right click add to zone #2

if you get an imidiate tcp flag just 1 add that to zone to#3

you will notice that you can post your budy list will load and you can connectt on the first try depending if you were fast enough to add to zone.

you will also notice aim talk works if it does not right click on aim aol instant messagenger click on prefrences then aim talk on the box that says alternet internet adress check the box or uncheck it lol you have to play with it sometimes=)

thats the only problems zone alarm has it eventualy learns to connect to the internet the first time so you dont have to manuely put add to zone every time but it takes awhile.

 

i see some za team members are here and one had smited me lol i wasnt puting dowen zone alarm it is the best it just has problems or small bugs you guys arnt willing to fix cause its nothing major.

but to the consumer these proably easly fixed bugs its perty darn anoying dont hate me cause i voice the truth.

if i had said za wat the worst firewall on earth then id understand you smiteing me cause its not true.

you need to open your mind.

any how these are just my personal experince and opnione im stand to follow check out example and never smite any body smiteing only shows that your close minded to the posiablitys and lowers your charcter.

 

I had ZA free recently and I had a lot of probs.I was using it with Visual Zone and I really liked it.I had to do a system recovery and had no time to copy anything.Consequently I had to reinstall all my security programs.I think that I had a bad install on ZA in the first place.Being a newbie I attribute a lot of that to (human error) a sloppy install on my part.I use Sygate free now.I changed because Sygate looked good and it was easier to install.But I had the same setup as gnostic to start with.If it's working well for you,keep it.If it wasn't for my prior probs I would still have that set-up and probably be happy with it yet.

 

it is a good fire wall it just has anoying bugs because its not a security issue it dosent get any attintion.

i love my zap it just sometimes i feel like i have to yeah or start something so they look back take notice and maybe ............maybe make a change.

its zap im fighting for you may hate me at times but if i open your eyes to whats important and take notice then its worth you hateing me cause maybe you will fix the problems.

im glad your fire wall working for you hey does yours update easly or have a clean uninstall =) nudge nudge shoulder lol

 

Mr.Blaze.Sygate installed easily.I checked for updates and I have the latest version.So I don't know about ease of updates yet.I hope that I never have to find out about the uninstall part.LOL.As far as ZApro,you know a lot more about the pro version than I do.

 

hii,new here and i bought Zone alarm Pro..the program command center will not work..it locks up every time.i try to check .have installed and reinstalled,,,so sorry i bought it,,,
Windows xp...Thanks

 

Hi Guys! Note to Gnostic: ZA v2.632 has MailSafe fully enabled on it. Subsequent versions of ZA free do not have it. It does use more system resources (I'm on Win98se) but it's not major for me. To be honest, I haven't had any bugs with the new version and it works pretty well. I have other apps (which I paid for) that cover the MailSafe issue. If you choose to upgrade there is no turning back without great difficulty. It's up to you.

 

Used to run ZAP, a few issues with it but basically a sound program, using Sygate now,happy enough.

Oh and welcome tee, nice to see another new face

 

Hello, im a total learner on a derelict win 95 that a freind left with me 9 mths ago. Before this i had never been on line . I have been hacked, abused , ridiculed , insulted and crashed on numerous occassions in my short journey into this world of cyberspace .I am grateful for sites like this to come and learn. I , having no money , utilised the free zonealrms but also made that fatal mistake of one day pushing the upgrade button . It was easier for me to take my clunky pc down to the pc shop and wipe everything and start a fresh lol. Since then i have tried every firewall suggested in this forum and also most virius and spyware and trojon ware . After a very large learning curve i have returned to simplicity and now have a Kerio firewall and a spyblocker and a pestpatrol .. I have to say that if there are any newbies out there who also have a simple machine and want a simple system then i can say this is working real well.I have had no problems now .Which is a relief after 7 months of torment. Having three simple programmes gives one time to study and read up on each and become a little more knowing on the basics . Otherwise with all the constant changes and new things arriving it can be very complicated . just a though journey well

 

okyaena.I can relate to the abuse etc.. as a newbie.I have been on-line with my own pc since Feb.I started out with NO security,and I learned real fast that it was a huge mistake.It's a good idea,what you are doing by getting to know a few programs first.I started out slow with a few newbie-friendly programs,(all free)then worked my way up to a handful of security and browser programs.I tested a lot of programs along the way,made some errors.I test what will hopefully work well for me.I'm not a beta-tester,that's mostly over my head.The people here have been extremely helpful.I would have been lost early on if it wasn't for finding this site and forum.I learn something everyday,and that's what it's all about.Sharing experiences and knowledge.And I found that there is a lot of both here from these people.This sums up my early net experience;the first program that I was exposed to was a "boot" program.Not Cool!I didn't know what hit me!That taught me how vulnerable i really was,that and kazaa experience.I hope that your journey takes the positive turns that mine has.

 

Hi okyaena,

Welcome!
A little bit off topic:
you said that you have Kerio, SpyBlocker, PestPatrol (if I understood you right).
But do you also have an anti-virus program?
That is also very important!

 

yes opllogies for drifting lol. I do have a kaspersky lite that i recently installed .

 

okyaena welcome it refreshing to see a fellow newby breaking out of the shell and posting hope to see more of you.

dont be afraid to ask qustions even if you think they might be stupit they arnt because thers always a newby lurking wanting to know the same thing

 

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I think I will keep ZA 2.6 until a more compelling reason for upgrading comes along. Ya'll are correct--it ain't broke, so I won't make any unnecessary repairs.