ZoneAlarm??

ZoneAlarm is one of those firewall's that every tech magazine recommends but is never really talked about in detail on this site. I have not used this firewall in a year but now that I am in the hunt for a simple to use firewall I have been looking into ZA again. Last version I used was v8.......

Is version 9 lighter then version 8?

How well is ZA at protecting a machine?

Does it come with a white list of known good apps?

Any known issue with Panda Cloud?

 

Hi Ibrad,
I stopped using ZA long time ago.
However you may be interested in http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

and if you need other informations you may also have a look here

http://www.calendarofupdates.com/updates/index.php?showtopic=16109&st=0&p=73142&#entry73142

.

--
I use PC Tools Personal Firewall Plus 6 (it comes with google toolbar bundled, but you can choose not to install it) and it works fine along side the most of antivirus

 

if you want a simple firewall (inbound/outbound protection) zonealar v9 is perfect. if you want a firewall with HIPS/IDS the PRO version is not that good.

 

1. Yes, it is lighter than version 8 here.
2. Depends on the version. Retail version includes HIPS and advanced protection. Free version only basic outboud filtering
3. Yes, ZA was one of the first to include cloud based white/black listing (not sure how far this is present in ZAfree solutions)
4. None reported so far.

Is it good is it bad? Depends, it all boils down to how well it runs on your machine and if you feel safe with it

Cheers,
Fax
P.S. That 'ask' information is OUT OF DATE (related to version 8 ). Ask seach is OFF by default now. You need to turn it ON. The toolbar provides phishing, site rating and advanced download scanning.

 

I knew the Ask Toolbar is in the install last time I installed it but I always check that I don't want the toolbar. I also don't want HIPS in my firewall that's why I was looking at ZA.

I have not used ZA in a year and the only reason I uninstalled it was to use MSE. I felt very protected with it last time I used it and I kinda miss seeing it's internet use status on the tray icon

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on the program.

 

Current ZA conflict with MSE (not ZA fault) will be fixed in the next release. This will happen sometimes during March or April... sorry if this is very vague but ZA never publish released dates and ZAfree is the last to be updated after all the other retails versions.

 

I don't use MSE anymore so I am not worried about it conflicting. I thought ZA was going to release a new version due to the conflict with MSE being ZA's fault (well that's how it looked on the MSE forums) I never knew it was not ZA's fault.

 

I hope they will not release ZA only to fix MSE problems but also to fix ZA bugs and implement new features.

 

I prefer not to worry about tests for I want to see how well it protects me

 

I'm running ZAP 9.1.008. I've had ZoneAlarm on my machines for longer than I can remember, and actually upgraded from free when ZAP 1.0 came out back in 2000. So I obviously like it, and I have history with it.

That said, the feeling is growing every day that I should ditch it for OA.
I am discouraged by the number of times that ZAP forgets settings and I'm told by support that something got corrupted and I need to reset everything or uninstall/reinstall. There just seems to be a steadily growing little list of annoyances associated with ZAP that has me really looking over the fence at other firewall products.

I believe that it is excellent protection, and the OS Firewall provides good HIPS protection. I'm obviously very used to it, very much like an old friend. But the ice seems to be getting thinner and thinner, if you know what I mean.

JMO

 

Tried many different firewall/suite but at the end I always come back to ZA
OA yes... nice... but not as user friendly as ZA and you will be surprised but it also suffers from forgetting of settings (at least it did to me).

Stability has been the priority in the last few releases and ZA has radically improved the product. From revising completely the install routines to radically reduce memory footprint or startup delays. Next version will hopefully fix some of the remaining program control issues on non-defaults state.

Better stability is achieved if you run only one security application (e.g. ZA Suite or Extreme) since many of the corruption related problems are caused by non-evident conflicts with other security tools.

I am testing the latest ZA beta since a couple of months and it has been rock solid experience with no corruption or forgetting of settings

Cheers,
Fax

 

Hi Fax

Yes, that's probably the cause of corruption. But I don't like the idea of a suite, and would rather keep the layered approach. It is hard (for me) to just give up on ZA. I guess that's why I've been a customer for so long. Right now (knock on wood) it's all running pretty good.

 

Hi Page!
Yes, I know.. I was like you then I got fed up of fixing issue at each update. My impression is that security tools are getting more and more complex and sophisticated with the consequence of been less and less resilient to other security tools. The market and the number of security products has increased exponentially and testing for compatibility has become a 'mission impossible'.

Anyway, Looking forward to the next ZA update

 

Hey fax i always do the same .But as far as stability i feel like 9 is getting buggier than 8. That was heavy but very stable. ( is lighter than any other version i guess) but i never had problems with ZASS in terms of update, scan and scheduling . With ZASS 9 i am having a hard time and you sure know i am not the only one.

ps; it seems like it never got out of beta

 

uuuhm, exactly the opposite experience... I found 8 buggy while 9 is more stable also in terms of support issues. With version 8 you had many support requests at the ZA forum, with ZA 9 far far less... Well, variety is the spice of life, for any given software you will always find the bad and the good

Which kind of problems you have? I have zero problems on latest Extreme beta on defaults.

 

update is really buggy and for what is worth mentioning the scan will sometimes not finish but get stuck at 99% and remain there for hours if i do not intervene .
I am using the latest ZASS and will use it till it expires and i find something else that times after time i find the security center warning that i have no antispyware protection in my laptop.

 

I can't see any of the issue you report here. If you scan the system in SAFE MODE with networking do you get the same results? This is usually caused by other software locking files or corrupted files. The scan in safe mode will ensure there is no other software in-between locking files or registry.

Update also work fine here. You may want to test the latest beta. They heavily revised the updating routing and fixed many of the issues. WSC repository is easily breakable. Installing/uninstalling can corrupt the WSC. First remove all tools then reset fully the repository with the Rejzor tool. After this your XP WSC will behave as it should.

ZA works best if left alone... if you start installing other security tool you will easily get in trouble

 

Thanks for all the information everyone, Windows Firewall has been giving me some issues so it looks like ZoneAlarm is going to be going back onto my machine

 

ZoneAlarm, what can you say about Zonealarm. Many moons ago, it was one of the best software firewalls. Then other companys caught up and surpassed them only to make their softwares more confusing and troublesome. Now I try Zonealarm again and it's a breath of fresh air. Go figure.

Ice

 

Interesting take. And fun to read. After so long with ZAP, for me it's more like a breath of familiar air, or maybe the smell of home cooking. But I'm still looking at other options...

 

I recently switched from the VIPRE AV Premium after only 2 weeks. I now use Avast Pro v5 and ZA Free.

I dont believe there is a known list of white list programs, but its relatively painless to just start up apps that connect out and allow to the list. It took me about 3 minutes and I have over 40Gbs of stuff on my laptop.

As for resource usage, its fairly light, but definately not the lightest Ive used. Its only using about 2,000K for me from the ZA Client. I dont know if any other services are related to it.

 

vsmon.exe is the TrueVector component of Zone Alarm as well.

 

I guess 18,000K total for ZA Free.

 

I received a free license back in Oct 2009 for the Pro version. Does the version turn into the Free one after the year is up?

Ice