Zone alarm

[dvndave]

Hi Folks,

Can anyone tell me why I now have two ZA icons running one of which is out of focus? ZA seems to be running ok but I'm concerned that it may have been comprimised in some way.

mtia

Dave

 

[pammy]

I presume you have rebooted your PC? If not then give that a go and see what happens. If you have - what happens if you hovver over the blurry one?

Is your PC running OK in all other respects? Have you run spybot, virus scan etc recently?

Although I've never seen this with mine - could it be that it needs updating?

Sorry lots of questions - but it might help.

 

[Ashley]

I have said this before on here, ZA is awful and windows firewall does just the same job.

 

[Flyer]

I have said this before on here, ZA is awful and windows firewall does just the same job.

What's wrong with ZA? Not had any problems with it, even bought the Pro version.

Don't forget Windows Firewall doesn't block outgoing traffic, so you won't be able to block some programs that want internet access, that you may not want to have access ... and there's plenty of them!

 

[Ian B Walker]

I have found that Tiny Personal Firewall excellent for my usage

 

[DieselE]

I have said this before on here, ZA is awful and windows firewall does just the same job.

We all become biased based on personal experiences. Some people even find they prefer BMW to MB!! In the end as the man with the wooden leg said "It's a matter of a pinion"!

The firewall built in to my modem/router seems to field most inbound attacks but I am still running Zonealarm Pro. Just a day or so ago after a session of following links from this forum, ZA warned me that it had found and deleted a "Tracking Cookie". IMHO this program is worth having but feel free to differ.

As far as the problem that started this thread is concerned, having copied your licence key to a safe place you could try uninstalling and reinstalling the program. On the other hand there's always the dull option of contacting ZA.

 

[Sp!ke]

Agree with Zooman...

ZoneAlarm is nothing but problematical. Even uninstalling it doesnt fix the damage it sometimes causes.

 

[Ashley]

Agree with Zooman...

ZoneAlarm is nothing but problematical. Even uninstalling it doesnt fix the damage it sometimes causes.

Pretty much sums it up and it is processor heavy, btw XPs firewall blocks all that are not ticked in the exeptions tab (although MS have not worded it very well) but unlike ZA it does not feel the need to tell you all the time.

 

[gary350]

Have a look through the forum or ask the question yourself.
http://forums.zonelabs.com/zonelabs

gary

 

[Sp!ke]

Last week I was speaking with someone who works all day every day building and fixing PC's for a living.

He made a comment which I thought very relevent to the thread.

"If there's one thing I have learnt from this game.... It's to never install Zone Alarm on anything."

Now I'm also in IT and perhaps the above wording is a little stronger than I would have put it but I can confirm that in most cases where we have application or access problems, the root cause is an installation or even prior installation of Zone Alarm.

My recommendation is keep it simple and cheap. Hide all PC's behind a router using NAT and use XP SP2 with the Windows firewall turned on. For Spyware, use the free Microsoft Spyware Utility and AVG free for Viruses. This way, both firewall, spyware and virus control are taken care of with minimum fuss and processor overload with little or no need for user interruption.

 

[Flyer]

Fair enough Spike, we all have our 'problem' software that we won't touch Mine, like many others, is anything from Symantec (except Ghost) .

FWIW a standard installation that I do on a client's PC now is ZoneAlarm, AVG Free, MS AntiSpyware, Spybot S&D and AdAware SE, plus all MS updates.

Never had any problems with ZoneAlarm, once it's been configured correctly. But maybe once I have a problem that screws a system, that I believe is attributed to ZA, I might feel different

dvndave, what you were seeing was possibly just Windows losing track of the system tray icons. Presumably, the problem has now gone?

 

[frog1520]

That linux thing is pretty good

 

[hitt]

I work as an IT Security Consultant and although my views on zonealarm are not at strong as some . . For the average person I would agree that if you want a trouble free experience avoid zone alarm. Especially when you have a LAN configuration set up at home/office. Although I would say (in my opinion)
it is far better than the flakey windows firewall . . we avoid that like the plague.
Although there is certainly mixed opinions on Symantec security products, I have always found that they work very effectively, and have used the security suite (firewall/virus software) usually available from PC world for £25 as each new version is released (cheaper than the annual subscription and 'usually' a better product)

For home usage, many people now use broadband services, so in many cases as long as your PC is powered on, you are connected to the internet. I would strongly suggest that anyone using their internet connection should out themselves behind a router with NAT and a firewall

but at the end of the day . . it really comes down to common sense when using your computer. It may seem a bit harsh, but the view I take is if someone doesn't understand the basics of computer security then they have no one to blame but themselves when things go wrong. These products will help, but are useless if the user does not understand the implications of what he/she is doing i.e. opening attachments from unknown sources.

There is no security patch for stupidity

check out the link below for a web site that test the security of your computer/network. If you are not passing all tests with flying colours you need to work on your security settings. If you are able to cloak your systems from being easily seen on the internet, you are going in the right direction.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

 

[DieselE]

Thanks HITT for a useful link. With a combination of my Router's firewall and Zone Alarm Pro, my computer passed all the tests with flying colours. I wont be complacent though and am probably a bit more informed on Internet Security than I was at the start of this thread.

 

[Ashley]

Just to drive home my point about ZA, this pc also passed with flying colours with MS firewall and nothing else.

 

[dvndave]

Hi Guys

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions. In answer to Pammy's question have I rebooted - yes many times and if I hover the cursor over either they both just say zone alarm, however, only the in-focus one will allow a right click t'other does not react!
Still no apparent probs just curious

Cheers

Dave