Don't Get Hacked (Zone Labs ZoneAlarm)

Member Name: gabriella2k

Product:	Zone Labs ZoneAlarm
Date:	13/10/01 (171 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stops Hackers, It's free

Disadvantages: none I can think of

Zone Alarm is a free personal firewall program that will protect your computer from malicious attacks by hackers. I first heard about this software from a magazine and decided to give it a try.


The Zone Alarm website is easy to navigate. You can find out more detail about the program by clicking on one of the links at the top of the page,or just click the download link.

The download takes between 15 - 30 mins. ,depending on your internet connection. When you have installed Zone Alarm,the first time you run your web browser,an alert box will pop up and ask if you want to give permission for Internet Explorer to access the Internet. It does this for all new programs you run for the first time,that requires internet access. For example,Windows Media Player or Gozilla. Once you have given it permission,you can instruct it not to ask you again.


If Zone Alarm detects any unauthorised communication with your computer,it will block it and a firewall alert will pop up. It will say, for example,that the firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer from a particular IP address and say which port has been scanned.


If you click on the more info button you will be taken to a zone alarm
webpage,where it describes in detail what has happened. You are then told whether it was a serious attempt to get into your computer or not.


It is usually just a port scan from some harmless program. I have been running zone alarm for 2 weeks and there have been 2 attempts to hack into my computer. Both stopped by Zone Alarm. Hackers get into your computer through your ports,which are in effect ,open doors to your computer. Zone Alarm blocks any incoming and outgoing traffic,unless you allow it.


I would say this is a program worth having and it is free. You can upgrade to the Pro version for about £28. You get more options with this, like extra protection from email attachments & dodgy cookies. But th
e free version is fine and gives you full protection against hackers.


I haven’t had any problems running this software and it hasn’t affected my use of the Internet. If you get a particular alert several times, which turns out to be harmless,you can choose whether or not you want to see this type of alert again.

An excellent program I would recommend.

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