Zone alarm setting questions

I am trying Zone Alarm Pro trial. I also currently have NOD32 (still trial) and Webroot's Spysweeper. Under the ZA settings, I turned off antivirus monitoring (I assume myself or the NOD program is smart enough to keep it up to date) but I am wondering if I also should turn off the anti-spyware setting as well. I'm pretty happy with spysweeper and I wonder if it will tie down unnecessary resources by enabling it in Zone Alarm as well. I'm also wondering that with NOD and spysweeper, the free edition of Zone alarm would be sufficient. I certainly don't want to spend unnecessary money but I also think it pays to not be foolish in security software.

EDIT: I meant on second line that I turned off antivirus monitoring, not email monitoring as originally posted.

 

The free version of ZoneAlarm should be sufficient. You will have SpySweeper (for anti-spyware), NOD32 (for anti-virus) and ZoneAlarm (for firewall).

 

Yep, check the features list and comparisons. If you don't need any of the ZA Pro "features", then why buy it? ZA Free is a solid, easy to use firewall. Also, I think that when you install ZA Free, it offers you the chance to try out ZA Pro for a while. You might try it, and if you don't need it, then just let it revert back to ZA Free after xx days.

 

Thanks for the reply guys. Yes that is exactly what I did. I downloaded the free version but upon the prompt, did a trial version of the pro. What concerns me about the differences is that the free version only offers a basic firewall while the pro offers a "triple layer" firewall. Do I need the triple layer firewall. Also I am concerned about email scanning. NOD32 only supports Outlook and I use Eudora. I still don't know if my email is getting scanned with NOD32. I'm not so much concerned about what I have already but more of what I might receive. ZA Pro offers email scanning.

But thus far I like the combination of NOD/ZA over Norton Internet Security. I think Norton Internet Security did it's job ok and saved my butt a few times but opening files took forever and it is much quicker with this combination just a very slight tad slower then having no protection at all.

 

Yep, Norton is a little on the large and slow side, I agree. Most other offerings are much snappier and lighter as well.

It is really your decision on whether you need the OS Firewall and other things Pro has to offer. Depends on how risky your habits are, whether you're likely to have malware or spyware erupting there on your PC or not. Some of us are safer than others in our internet habits, so what we need depends on how we use our machines (Captain obvious eh?)

I would think that Nod32 should be scanning your email. If not then shame on Nod. Most email scanners nowadays cover Outlook, OE and then also have a generic scanner as well for other email programs. Avast is a good example of this.

 

Apart from mail scanning, Avast also does web scanning real time as well like others, and P2P and a IDS among others.

 

Just to clear a bit of misconception. ZA Pro does not contain any AV component to it. Therefore it does not scan emails for viruses. In ZA Pro's email protection, what it does is to "quarantine" common email attachments. What this means is that ZA changes the extension of the attachments such that when you open your attachment, ZA will warn you that you are opening a potentially unsafe(does not necessarily mean its unsafe) and ask whther you wish to continue opening the file. This gives a user a second timne to think about whther they should open the attachment or not. ZA(free) only quarantines .VBS attachments while ZA Pro quarantines many more such as .EXE, .RAR, .ZIP, .VBS etc.

I agree that ZA and NOD32 make a good combination and one that is better than NIS. You perhaps may want to consider ZA Pro just for the merit of its OSFirewall(together with the standard network firewall gives the "triple-layer of defence"). Also the privacy features can be useful to you. It also certainly does not hurt to run more than one antispyware as no single antispyware can detect 100% of the spyware out there.

 

One reason that I can think of to buy the Pro version is the triple defense firewall. From what I've been reading (I'm not going to quote sources), it's been passing every leak test thrown at it.

 

Why is it that no one seems to mention the 'Privacy' section of ZAP?

Perhaps it is because they don't use I.E.?

Well I do use I.E. and I bought the PRO version of ZA because I consider the ability to block out ActiveX, Java applets, scripts etc - not to mention the Ad blocker and cookie blocker (which also blocks the 'Referrer') - to be a considerable asset to my overall safety and enjoyment.

I also like the triple defence FW.

With the free ZA you are getting a good basic FW, and if that is all you require then fine, but for me some of the extras are worth having.

 

I think I'm going to buy the Pro edition. I tried Zone alarm maybe one or two years ago (maybe early version of 5?) and had problems with certain programs either not accessing the Internet or taking an extraordinary long time in doing so but not so far with this version and I love the interface, very polished and slick. I thought NIS was ok in that regard but this is better.

Are there better deals on buying this program then from the ZA web site?

 

You may get better deals from you local computer store especially during this festive season but if you were to buy the boxed versions, support will mainly come from Encore/Broderbund. And lets just say we haven't really heard too many good things about the support from Encore.

Of course The official ZoneAlarm forum will always exist to help people with the technical aspect of the pogram no matter whether you bought it from a store or online from Zone Labs, or if you are using the free version or the paid version.

http://forum.zonelabs.org

 

Do these features actually work? I used to have them on, and I never seen it actually block an ad or a popup. I ended up turning off all the privacy features. :/