hi im just wondering about zonealarm free firewall + antivirus. A lot of customer reviews on the web denounce it as spyware. Is this true? people claim that the toolbar it installs o ur computer is in fact malicious software. I don't really know much about firewalls so im asking here. I really hope its not as bad as people say because I just installed it on a new hardrive ps I myself have used zonealarm for years with no problems thanks in advance
I don't know, but you don't need it. Windows Firefox of Vista and up, with a router will give you an excellent protection for home and small offices purposes. You don't need these firewall software (unless you are on XP or older). As for larger companies where you actually have valuable information that is actually targeted by a hacker or a group of hackers, then you'll have the money to have a real hardware firewall.
When I looked into using zonealarm a few years ago I got the impression it was now adware after reading a lot of negative comments, as such I decided to avoid it. However it may have just been due to the new owners attempt to milk money out of the free users as per this wiki article.
ZoneAlarm used to be my choice, until I felt it just became bloated and slow. Luckily that was when Norton finally got their act together and released a good antivirus. Then that started becoming bloated again. Then MS released MSE. I'm still with MSE I would just use windows firewall and MSE. I've not had a problem since I started doing this.
Kaspersky and Norton Internet Security, the two most proven paid-for packages, both have good but uncustomizable firewalls built in. If you want a firewall/AV setup you can just install and leave to do its stuff, they're the best you can get. If you want a firewall you can extensively tweak and customize to suit specific needs, adding complex exceptions and rules, they're not so ideal (although Kaspersky does slightly better than Norton on this front). The last time I used it (years ago), Comodo was impressive on this front, featuring loads of detailed settings and options. It's a dedicated firewall solution (rather than a combined protection package) so you'd expect no less. Software hipsters have been making noise about F-secure and Panda lately, but they never seem to stand out in any tests or group reviews, so I haven't bothered to try them.
Never been a fan of ZoneAlarm tbh. Microsoft Security Essentials & Malware Bytes Pro. And leave Microsoft's Firewall to do it's job. Dom
i used zonealarm from '02 to '05 and it was fine, but then i stopped living with a guy who insisted i needed a firewall on my PC and got a router running tomato and it seemed superfluous. haven't run a firewall on anything since then. If it has become bloated spyware that's a shame, i liked it back then because i honestly forgot i had it installed/running except for the first time i ran any new game when i'd get a couple of popups to dismiss. security essentials i've seen a lot of stuff saying it hasn't kept up with other things. i'm using avast now, but it constantly pestering me to upgrade or enable other features is starting to get to me. all that said, i've never knowingly had a virus or been hacked, never felt the need to run a scan, i think i'm mostly doing this because 'people say you should' and as i'm not paying anyone any money i figure that can't just be a con.
I used the free version of Zone Alarm firewall for about 4 years with no problems... but in the last three + years I've only used Microsoft Security Essentials along with Microsoft's Firewall. Only had one apparent incident with the Microsoft tools running when some website popup ad tried to mimic MSE and only got as far as turning off the real MSE before I killed my internet connection and commenced damage control/eradication. That happened about 2 years ago and I haven't had a problem since. I haven't used Norton in many years, never had good luck with it. Used to have stuff slip through and trying to remove old versions was nearly impossible without a drive reformat.
That's a point. I should probably throw in (since I un-virus computers for a living) that Malwarebytes has been getting very good, and now has really, really good detection rates. I trust it to see almost everything (occasionally it misses day-zero stuff, but then can see it later that same week). We used to use a whole bunch of different tools to check machines, but between Combofix and MBAM I haven't had any problems cleaning them in recent months. For my own machine, I've let Bullguard (loathesome thing that it was) lapse and just rely on Malwarebytes free. The paid-for version gets you a realtime scanner, but if you're running scheduled quick scans on startup it's not really necessary. And come to think of it, does anyone actually get hacked any more, in the network intrusion sense? I've had paid-for firewalls for the last few years, but haven't seen an intrusion alert in over 18 months that I can remember. It seems to have died out in favour of trojans and ransomware (which is now bigger business than heroin, as far as I can tell).
zonealarms isnt spyware since its made by Check Point who are the biggest Firewall security company in the world. They invented the stateful inspection firewall we know today. hahaha as you can tell i may sell check point firewalls, enterprise stuff though not the home stuff
zonealarm was ok 10 years ago, if you really need a more advanced firewall you should check out Comodo
Not a fan of zonealarm or any of the firewalls that claim to do it all for you and just require an occasional click to shut it up if it gets "annoying", it depends on how PC savvy people are and how much effort they will put into configuring a firewall, the biggest problem with Windows Firewall is that it's never been that easy to block outbound connections, Win7 firewall is an improvement as it has IIRC some blocked outbound defaults and more can be added but many people don't want the hassle and just rely on a firewall notifying them if a program want's internet access and often they don't really know what that means and just click the box and allow it and that could be allowing malware an outbound connection. Some people don't think blocking outbound connections is important but personally I like to block outbound connections for every application that's not absolutely necessary, a lot of applications want to be allowed to automatically check for updates but who knows what data they may be sending especially if it's a google application like sketchup, etc. I use Comodo firewall which is quite easy to block applications and ports on a one by one basis and also easy to open ports when necessary, I also use "Process Explorer" which shows all running processes and gives you the chance to check out anything unusual that's running rather than allow it the chance to establish an outbound connection, I'm not paranoid I just like to know what's going on, there's no point having a firewall if it's not really doing anything useful.