Good for home or business computer protection.
Written: May 24 '04 (Updated May 24 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good firewall, strong range of features.
Cons: better support of alternative web browsers would be very helpful.
The Bottom Line: Strongly recommended for small and large businesses, may be overkill for home users depending on their circumstances.
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| davidis99's Full Review: ZoneAlarm Pro 4 |
A good software firewall is practically a necessity for any computer user these days. It's for this reason that every Linux distribution, MacOS X, and Windows XP all include firewalls that range from basic to being able to protect a business network. However, many of these firewalls lack certain features (such as the ability to protect against rogue programs already on your computer, a notable defect of the firewall in Windows XP, pre-service pack 2) or are difficult to configure.
For this reason, add-on firewall software such as Zonealarm (at version 4.5.594 as of this writing) makes protecting your computer easier by providing a better interface, and better protection. You should be aware that Zonealarm comes in four varieties - Zonealarm (free for personal use), Zonealarm Plus (provides ad blocking, hacker tracing), Pro (all features of Plus, with added myVAULT and Host File Lock features to further protect your personal information), and Pro with Web Filtering (for families that want to block certain sites to protect children.)
Choosing which version of Zonealarm to install depends largely on how the computer is used. For example, if you're on a home PC used only by adults, and don't use Outlook or another PC based email client for home email, the free version of Zonealarm works fine, and provides good, basic protection - you'll have no problem passing any of the web-based firewall tests, such as Symantec's, or Steve Gibson's "Shield's Up" test. If you want the additional features provided by ZA Plus or Pro at home but are on a budget, there are other freeware programs such as Ad-aware and Spybot that can take up much of the slack, though they may impact on your system's resources, depending on which version of Windows you're running. Another example: in a family setting, you may want the additional protection provided by ZA Pro with Web filtering, if you are sharing a computer with your children, or want to protect them on their computer(s) from pornography or other problem web sites.
My final example comes back to the title product for this review, ZA Pro. This is a useful addition in any corporate or business environment, as perimeter firewalls such as Checkpoint, Cisco Pix, Watchguard, Sonicwall, and others, may or may not protect you from what you or your employees actively bring down to their PCs. The Pro version provides email protection, very useful when every business user has an email client such as MS Outlook on their PC, and provides popup and add-blocking, so your employees shouldn't need to try to install ad-aware or popup stopper on their own. ZA Pro also works well with Netscape and Internet Explorer, providing cache-cleaning that's easier to access than the ones built into the browsers.
There are some minor downsides to ZA Pro - it does require more work to configure it than the basic version, because you have more options with the program. Also, if you use a browser other than IE or Netscape (for example, I use Opera in addition to the other two) you may need to create special rules within ZA Pro for certain sites to work properly with your browser (while testing Pro, I had to create a special rule for the NY Times website to work properly.) Aside from those caveats, ZA Pro is an excellent product, and well worth the money especially in a business environment.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
davidis99
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Member: David Steinberg
Location: White Plains NY
Reviews written: 47
Trusted by: 0 members
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