ZAP/ZASS 7.0.302.000

This is the every day stories from ZA. It's the reason why after 3 years I too said ***K it because it's crazy that customers should have to subject themselves to such measures to make their software work. It goes to show how loyal ZA customers were that they would screw around trying to fix problems for so long. I will never go back. It's not worth taking the chance. Every time you upgrade it's a crap shoot. There are people still using version 5.5 or earlier because they're afraid to upgrade. I am using Comodo and have no problems.

 

I agree a 110%.

I love ZA Pro FW, paid for it and can't use it because they can't even fix the issues they already have.

It's a shame because eventually ZA FW will be die off because of their stupid antics. People are not going to keep putting up with this and the sooner they realize this the better, but I doubt they ever will. ZA FW has a lot of potential to be better than it is.

Don't Check Point read the forums!

 

Hi, folks: I just got off from ZA's forum. The scene over there re v.7 is unbelievable, like aftermath of an earthquake. Uers are crying blue here and there. Everyone except brand new user has to uninstall existing version and then install the new one (so-called clean install), this technique is so unusual that user has to follow the procedures EXACTLY, otherwise, terrible thing could happen. I ask myself that why in the world would people at Check Point do such horrible thing to their loyal clients. Do they know how to make people happy and make their cyber-days more enjoyable? Just a pity. Wasting their gifted talent. I think I wait a more longer before even entertaining the idea of upgrading to v.7 BTW, I think people at check point 's higher level are hiding at COLD place, their hearing and vision are very selective, tuned to preselected frequency. Hear no evil, see no evil. Right?

 

I would be careful not to associate the experience of a small number of users asking for installation help in the ZoneLabs user help forum with the experience of millions of ZA users worldwide. Although some users wanting to install ZA v7 have been provided the option of un-installing the previous version first this is only a suggestion and it is not required. The only suggestion I would make since ZASS version 7 uses the new KAV engine would be un-checking (disabling) the "load ZA at startup" option in ZASS 6.x under the Overview > Preferences tabs and then reboot the machine. This helps avoid conflicts from the previous ZASS and older CA AV running in real time. Next run the ZASS 7 installation program and during the ZASS 7 installation phase select the "clean install" option when asked. However even these are just suggestions and are not required. From my past years of experience with ZA and my own recent experience installing ZASS 7 and from reading user opinions so far in the ZA forum version 7 is turning out to be one of the better and easier ZA product upgrades.

 

How about a huge number of users on their forum that had major problems after loading Z.A on their systems (and I mean MAJOR) . If one even expresses a slightest amount of "critique" towards Z.A's mess, it gets quickly deleted. So....unless you have a "success story", don't even bother posting there. Why purchase a bag-full-of-problems.....when you can get Comodo for free and save yourself the agony and pain.

 

I have had zero problems testing it. Been running very fine on my comp

 

ZoneAlarm antivirus 7 has been running great on my system, no problems whatsoever. I have it running alongside nod32 at the moment, i'm using nod32 for http scanning and za's kaspersky engine for on access scanning.

 

Here are a few for starters...maybe they should have tested their BETA a bit longer.

Quote:

The following three issues has been reported to Tech Support and the Developers are working on a fix.

The issues are as follows:

1. Windows Security Center warning: antivirus out-of-date; After update
it comes back again.
2. Expert rules are not saved upon restart;
3. kl1 service cannot find file (system event notification). This can
slow down a bit the startup.

No ETA yet when the fix will be available.

 

Farmerlee - The Kaspersky AV in ZA is supposed to be a great AV. Why would you feel it necessary to run NOD32, another great AV along side it. Number one, you can't run 2 AVs at the same time or you'll have conflicts if a virus is detected, and 2 AVs aren't necessary.

 

I just installed the Zone Alarm antivirus edition on my laptop. I needed an antivirus and for twenty bucks this is a bargain. It is running as smooth as silk and the Windows Security Center reports there is an antivirus. No kl1 problem either . I tried a few expert rules and they are staying in place. So I wonder what the ruckus is all about. I uninstalled the Comodo and I plan on keeping the Zone Alarm for good. The Comodo is okay, but it is a little on the weak side with the lousy logging and weak default rules and I found a few bugs in it.

12fw

 

Hi, folks: When I post my observations or sort of comments, I will try to be impartial, non-biased. But this growing pain of v.7. installation and performance are getting worse and worse day by day. Just look at here or for comparision matter, ZA forum. The list of discontent is growing by feet not by inches. Any person w/ grade school IQ would know that this is a tip of an huge iceberg. I wish Stock Brokerage analysts are not readers of these forums. Check Point's stock(if they indeed are listed at any stock exchange) will be a SELL,SELL, not even a HOLD. Sometimes, we just can not RUSH a turtle, and ZA products are happened to be one of them.

 

You mean like this?

http://www.advfn.com/quote_Check-Point-Sof_NASDAQ_CHKP.html

12fw

 

Hi, folks: Hi, 12fw, thanks for the link. Just look at the chart, on July 2006, it reached its bottom, around the same time, ZA released ZA products v.6, remember the chaos at that time? is it similiar to recent events generated by v.7 ? Some people just could not learn from past history. eh? Of course, ZA products may not be Check Point's bread and butter, but it will adversely hurt their bottom line and executives' performance bonuses.

 

I think I will hold off on any ZoneAlarm upgrades for a while. For me this is no diffferent than any other updates to ZoneAlarm. Wait a month or so. By that time Zone Alarm will have fixed most of their problems. Maybe what they need to do is package an uninstaller for ZA 6.5 security suite along with the install of ZA 7. Secondly I think that the positive experience of some of the beta users of ZA 7 is misleading. These people are VERY Knowledgeable & know exactly what they are doing. It would be my guess they have a good rescue strategy for their PC. They certainly use something Acronis, Paragon,Rollback, etc. Very likely most of the People in the ZoneLabs forums have no idea what to do if they have problems & may have no backup system besides System Restore. This is a disaster waiting to happen for ZoneLabs. I know of at least one user in an office who blindly applies all updates to Zone Alarm when they offer it to her. If she has problems she gets hold of the first person who walks by & then calls the repair man if there is a problem she cannot easily fix. The release itself is probably great but most casual users who bought this suite because some salesman told them to & had it installed by the computer store have no idea what to do.

 

I have been using ZA since before ZA free version 2 and from my experience this version 7 release is one of the better versions and there are numerous posts in the ZA forum just like there are in this forum of ZA v7 users with a similar experience. I can't speak for the people who claim to have had "Major" problems with installing version 7 or any previous ZA release but I know that in the past year or two there has been an increase in the possibility of conflicts between ZA and other security programs due to the use of similar security features. This is why it is recommended to temporarily disable all other security software before un-installing or installing any ZA product or those other programs block the changes needed for a successful un-install or install of ZA.

The ZA user forum is provided by ZoneLabs where ZA product users provide volunteer help and information for other ZA users. Just like most volunteer user help forums such as this one there are guidelines that are supposed to be followed to keep the forum on topic as a ZA help forum and not a place to post critical comments directed toward ZoneLabs or other ZA forum users.

I have not tried the Comodo firewall but I have read good things about it from users in this forum. Because of my familiarity with the ZA products, the success I have had using them and the support information provided on the ZoneLabs web site and the user forum I prefer using the ZA paid subscription based products such as ZAP and ZASS.

 

Socalreviews - As a member of the ZA forum team and a Guru, I can't blame you for defending the product. I agree that the ZA firewall is a good one and the accompanying AV and AS is OK too. When it works. IMO there are so many pc settups out there that the odds are good that your pc will have a problem with the software. The problem is that a few people are novices to some extent and they chose ZA because it's easy to set up. When they have a melt down with the upgrade or installation they are presented with techi solutions and some times using their limited knowledge get themselves in even deeper trouble. Just uninstalling requires at least an intermediate knowledge of your system. I think I can get around fairly well, and I was in a sweat doing the clean uninstall. The easiest thing a person can usually do is install software. The wizards walk you through to the point where you just glance over the instructions. Don't try that with ZA. If you miss a step you could be in deep trouble. You say that the few complaints in the forum are just a sampling of the millions who don't have a problem. What about the people who aren't aware of the forum. I'm sure that version 7 will level off and be OK after a month or so, but why after finally doing it right by issuing a beta are there still so many problems. Maybe they need a new staff.

 

The Comodo uninstall was fairly messy. It left drivers and keys, so I guess it is not a perfect world after all. The newer design does make the install seem easier or was the ZA always this easy. The links are embedded in the ZA firewall so I guess the forum is hard to miss.

 

Twl845, regardless of my status in this forum, the ZA forum, or any other forum I believe the main objective of a volunteer security forum is to exchange helpful information with other users regarding security software. Sometimes I read posts and threads from forum users like they were cheering for their favorite sports team to win. In this thread I read many posts that were generalizations about ZA and not very many of them related to actual experiences with the ZA v7 release. It is one thing to be a fan cheering for your team and to have a one sided thread based on opinions but the best way to provide helpful information for the other forum users is by posting about actual experiences from using the new software release. I only posted replies in this thread to describe my recent experience with the ZASS v7 release and not to take sides in a back and forth debate about firewall preferences.

 

I would ask that we all please stay on topic, and make this discussion only about the product, and not to the status of a member, be it on this forum or others.

Thank you,

Stem

 

Hey SoCalReviews,
You helped me in the past on the ZA forum and I welcome your opinions here. 6 weeks ago, I removed ZAISS from my desktop and am now running Comodo FW, Nod32 and Spysweeper. I must say I am very happy with this configuration - much less drama than when I had the ZAISS AV update and version upgrade issues.

But I also have a ZAISS installation on my laptop (8 months remaining). I haven't updated to ZAISS V7 yet but have been lurking on the ZA boards to see what's going on. I see several people there are recommending removing Spysweeper because Kaspersky engine plus the ZA spy engine are all that's needed. I know a lot of people think SSW is a resource hog and I know it slows things down a bit, but I'm slow to remove a tried and true app that has saved me in the past (not to mention its the #1 rated spyware security product). What advice can you give as far as compatibility between ZAISS V7 and Spysweeper? I see you are a fellow SSW user so I was wondering if you are still using it with ZAISS V7 and what if any shields you have disabled.

Thanks,

Oldshep

 

~removed quote of post just above~ Stem

Hi Oldshep, This is not really the topic of this particular thread but just so you know I do use Spy Sweeper 5.2 on my system and it does use allot of resources but Webroot has worked out some of the serious issues that plagued the previous SS v5.x releases. I can't say if I would recommend or not recommend using SS v5.2 but if you have the system resources to run it and don't mind turning off one or more of its shields for compatibility with the other security software you are using then it is still an effective anti-spyware product. On my desktop I have the common ad-sites shield disabled and for my older slower notebook I have both the common ad-sites shield and the memory shield disabled. You really need to use trial and error for determining what SS shields (if any) to disable.

The ZASS v7 with the KAV engine is a great combination of components in one suite and many users are going to only run ZASS with v7. If you have another anti-spyware subscription like SS 5.2 then you can try using it and see if you have the resources to run it. I also like using some of the popular free anti-spyware programs such as Windows Defender (real time), Spybot S&D, and Spywareblaster. The subscription based AVG anti-spyware v7.5 program might be a good real time AS to use instead of SS 5.2. Just be aware that there are always more chances for conflicts among the real time anti-spyware programs when you add more of them to your system.

Regarding your current setup with Comodo, NOD32, and Spy Sweeper...if it works well for you then that is what is important. I have not tried Comodo but it seems to do well in the firewall tests and many of this forum's users seem to like it. I really like NOD32 and the forum help here at Wilder's is fantastic. Although I do not recommend having two AV programs installed at one time on a system I might soon be trying out the ZASS v7 on my desktop system (with the AV component disabled but available for on demand scanning) and NOD32 v2.7 fully active for real time protection. I have a NOD32 subscription that I want to continue to use. I am not sure how well that combination will work but if it works as well as it does with ZASS 6.5 then it should be ok.

I am using only the combination of ZASS v7 along with SS 5.2 (with some shields disabled as I described previously) on my older notebook computer and it seems to work well. Remember that whatever combination of security products you decide to use it is your system and you don't have to duplicate other people's setup to achieve a high level of system security and functionality. If you want to try out different combinations that is fine but ultimately you need to use the programs that you are comfortable using and those that work best on your system.

 

Very true about being messy. I installed the latest version of Comodo on a test box just to see what the memory footprint was......Security Center is still reporting it as turned off even though it was removed. I have turned off Security Center until I can figure out how to get rid of the Comodo "LEGACY" entries in the registry. I'm just glad it was a test box.

 

LOL, its just something i'm trying out, i have paid for both products so i figure i may as well use them. So far no problems so i'll keep trying it out.

 

Perman,

There is always a whole slew of installation questions at the ZA forums with every release. Even ZA 4.5 and older (before the Checkpoint Software takeover) had their fair share of problems. It is not right to use a user forum to determine if something is going to work for you as ultimately the only people who come to these types of forums are those who have trouble, therefore never a good place to statistically say something is not working for alot of people.

P.S. Za v7 works well for me and even feels faster although no noticable decrease in the use of system resources. Then again ZA always runs fairly light on my system.

 

Bad news:
Cyberhawk interferes with ZAISS 7. The computer freezes. I had to uninstall Cyberhawk and now everything is working well.