I downloaded and installed ZoneAlarm by ZoneLabs Some time ago, (actually, about a couple of years ago, the 1st time...) because my husband insisted that someone had to be accessing our home PC's somehow, because things seemed to happen to our files, and of course, everyone always denies doing anything themselves... We had to either have some computer savvy ghosts, illegal intruders, or PC's capable of writing things their own way...

Although "I" felt pretty sure it wasn't any of the above, I had to admit, something, (or someone,) was messing things up, much more often than I cared to fix them...
Long Story Short....
When I was surfing aimlessly one night, I came across some interesting topics at the ZDNet site, one of which, was a bit about "ZoneAlert." I also noticed that there seemed to be a good amount of users downloading this product and so far I hadn't heard anything negative, the price was perfect so I installed.

The installation is fairly straight forward and simple. The use of the product is for the most part straight forward and simple also. The exception what all is found in their pop-up window that they provide.

This mustard yellow thing lets you adjust, set levels, allow programs access and configure as one would expect. Although I was able to fill in the blanks for the most part, I feel there will be more than one inexperienced user that will be left scratching their heads.

They are short on explaining what each function does, how to set levels and how to figure out just what your setting what for. I don't see set up a problem for experienced users yet for the beginners who will want security may have to use the customer support more than one to feel secure in how they are setting this program up.

The only other flaw I have really noticed, is when the system alerts you to a unauthorized access from either a old site not properly closed out on your system or from a possible "invasion," they do not give user friendly details. Unless you have used these types of programs previously, you will probably have a difficult time understanding what the alert means in depth.

The alert itself is simple to understand, they will tell you what probably happened to cause the alert, and if there is anything to worry about. However they don't give very good details on finding out more about the alerted attempt.

Sure you will know an attempt has been made, yet they do not keep a running log to date for future references and they give such information as port addresses as to the when’s and where’s, but like I said earlier, unless you're up to date on what all of this is meaning, you will be spending allot of time asking your computer just what all of this means when you see their pale yellow alert pop up. Most likely you're not going to receive a response.

Just remember, even though you may not be able to find out more on the specific alarms with this system, if you're getting an alarm in the first place, it's probably a good idea that the system is set up anyhow, the rest can hopefully be worked out later.

ReWritted & Updated, March, 2004.

Recommended: Yes