A brilliant personal firewall.
Written: May 27 '01 (Updated Jun 01 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Secure, easily customisable, free.
Cons: Difficult to understand alerts if you're not technical.
The Bottom Line: A nearly perfect product to help ensure your system is secure from outside attack.
|
|
|
| doreiwolf's Full Review: Zone Alarm |
If you have any worries about securing your Windows system from outside attack, this is the product for you.
I kept meaning to do something about my system security but was procrastinating. Then a system I log into regularly was hacked and anyone who used it became a target. I was led to Zone Alarm and installed it. I found initial configuration simple (with my background in computers and networking); non-technical users may have a harder time, I can't say.
Initially Zone Alarm is very 'noisy' putting up a lot of alerts. Many of these are asking you if a particular program on your system is allowed to access the internet. You can tell it to allow the program just for now, or 'forever' and you can change your mind later. Once you have most of your usual internet programs configured Zone Alarm settles down.
It was this feature that brought a piece of 'spyware' to my attention; something I wouldn't know about if the firewall only provided an incoming filter.
In my particular case I also have a few outside machines which need access to my PC. Zone Alarm allowed me to configure a list of these, so it would stop alerting me to (what I regard as) legitimate access attempts.
With Zone Alarm now configured with known programs and systems, it settled down a lot, now reporting only 'real' alerts.
I felt a little happier at this point, but still wanted to 'test' Zone Alarm further and used a few internet sites which test your computer security (Shields Up! being the main one). Each one told me their attempts had failed, and that in fact my system hadn't responded to their requests, effectively rendering it 'invisible'. Every now and again I test it again, and it has yet to fail.
I've found no bugs, and have never had it crash. It seems a very solid piece of software.
Personally I think everyone who doesn't have some type of firewall should download this. It not only protects you from outside attacks, but also alerts you to possible 'trojans' residing within your system. And for the price, how can you go wrong?
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
doreiwolf
|
|
Location: Australia
Reviews written: 53
Trusted by: 9 members
About Me:
Computer geek, Star Wars nut, toy freak, interested in religion, ancient civilisations.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.