Zone Alarm Extreme 2015 - My Experience

This is not intended as a comparative thread == just a heads-up word to the wise = a Warning.

Out of curiosity I decided to try the new Zone Alarm Extreme AV+Firewall 2015. I ran it along with Webroot SA with WSA's firewall turned off. ZA Extreme 2015 had gotten great test results at AV Test blocking 100% of all real world malware attacks with only one FP, better results of any that were in it's latest Comparative Real World Test. The average protection rate of all products in the latest AV - TEST (November/December 2013 testing) was 94%.

http://www.av-test.com/tests/projects/AV-TEST_Checkpoint_ZoneAlarm_Jan_2014.pdf

I really liked ZA Extrene 2015 a lot. It was surprisingly light and has some unique features that I really liked. It also scans pretty fast. BTW: although its malware blocking is mostly cloud based, you can make it update its definitions every 30 minutes rather than the old once a day. It still uses some version of Kaspersky for its scanning functions.

However, there was a conflict with one of my other programs that ZA would not allow to run or even let me open its interface, so I decided to uninstall ZA, and maybe try it again if I replaced the software it was conflicting with.

Immediately after I uninstalled ZA my PC was totally borked. It would not boot. I could not even get my Windows 8 install or repair discs to to start. After spending most of the day and using several bootable type rescue dics and flash drives, I somehow got my PC booted and it seems to be OK now.

Of course, it could have been something else about my PC that caused the issue,but I doubt it. You couldn't pay me enough to ever again install another Zone Alarm product on my PC.

It's a shame really, because as long as you never have to uninstall it, ZA Extreme 2015 appears to be a great security program that comes with a host of features.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

Were ZA and Webroot really the only security tools installed on your PC?