Hide your computer in cyberspace! (Zone Labs ZoneAlarm)

Member Name: pipefish

Product:	Zone Labs ZoneAlarm
Date:	19/07/03 (858 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's free and even the Pro version has many useful features for the cost, Hardly any involvment needed, install and forget, Most programs will work on the internet without having to customise firewall settings

Disadvantages: Can be slow to start up, There are some prompts and alerts flashing up at first, May stop a very few websites from working

I have a broadband line (smug look) and have used Zonealarm for several years to protect my PC on the internet.

The best thing about Zonealarm basic is that it is free and works on all windows platforms. It is easy to use too - I have had it on my computer for ages and have virtually forgotten about it now which is probably the best way to show its ease of use! I have it sitting up the Windows start menu and it takes about 20 seconds to fire up and start its 'protection racket'.


Installation is easy and quickly done, it includes walk-throughs showing you how everything works and tutorials. These can be skipped if required. There is a huge amount of information on the ZoneLabs website in addition to this.
Once set up it just sits on the side of the task bar as a small icon. Double clicking on it brings up all the options and console panel. Clicking on the close button then sends it back to the taskbar, but still keeps it working. The console panel shows the programs currently accessing the net, all security level options and also a padlock option to do an instant shutdown - clicking on it immediately cuts out all internet access and traffic from your computer.

When you use programs that access the internet for the first time Zonealarm prompts you whether you wish to allow the program to access the internet. Select Yes and check the box to remember the option and once this is all done that is it! You can review the list of programs at any time and what access they have been given and change them if necessary.

The basic version includes:
Firewall - options to set the levels of security
Mailsafe - protect your email from attachments with unknown codes or viruses
Event Logger and Alerts - to flash an alert or just log every unknown communication attempt with your computer

The Logger can be set up to alert you every time an attempt to hack your computer or unknown communication is detected
. This then comes up in a speech bubble in the bottom right and is logged in a text file. I found this feature annoying and turned off the alerts but kept the logging enabled, so that I can read the text file if needed or list them all on the event logging tab.


ZoneAlarm Pro is the big brother of ZoneAlarm. It is not free but includes extra features such as Ad Blocking and Cookie Control and the ability to trace the source of any attacks on your computer and more virus types to block in email attachments. Pro costs about £35. These are some of the features and their uses:

Cookie control has 3 settings of security - you can block all cookies, block just those from tracking sites, or none of them. Cookie control can be useful but I found it just stopped some internet sites from working properly, including this one. Most personalised cookies will be on internet sites that you have registered with and have to log-in to or are there to recognise when you are returning to them. Zonealarm will block any comms from spyware hidden on your computer anyway.


Ad Control has several levels of security:
High - block all pop-ups adds and banner ads
Medium - block ads that don't load in a specified time or pop-ups
None - no blocking
This is great - I find nothing more irritating that moving backwards and forwards around a website when animated windows and annoying clips keep appearing and you have to keep closing them....... especially if you are constantly trying to reload a page. At medium this is effective at blocking most annoying pop-ups or adverts.
However if you have a sense of ethics remember that a lot of websites depend on advertising for their revenue and so need to know that surfers are reading them so that the advertisers will continue funding them.

Tracing attempts to find where any attempted hacking on your computer originated from and will give you a report showing a map location, IP addre
ss and server name. You can then send this to the server owner or the email abuse address for them to complain.


The best way to check your computer's vulnerability to offering its data over the net is to go the ShieldsUp service at www.grc.com. Here there is a free test to check your computers security which will attempt to contact the internet server on your computer and determine how easy this is. This site is well respected and recommended.
With Zonelarm activated it will typically be unable to contact the internet server on your computer, even though you have offered your IP address, and will get no response from any ports. Therefore your computer effectively is hidden the internet and is operating in 'stealth mode'.

On the other hand Zonelarm is not so secure that it prevents you using the internet. I have used programs such as E-Donkey and WinMX with ZoneAlarm on high security mode without any problems. There is a lot written about these programs on forums that you have to configure your firewall to work with these programs, forward or specially open ports for them to use but I have not had this trouble, they all worked first time. Maybe this is from people who are getting slow download speeds and start searching for excuses?
In general the first time you use these sharing programs, Zonealarm detects that they are attempting to access the internet and will ask whether you are happy for them to access the internet and also whether you wish to allow them to act as a server. After that they go onto the Programs list and you will be bothered no more.
However if you wish to manually configure there are options to specify which ports to open and what broadcast types to block or allow and set different options depending on what Internet Security level you have selected.
The only trouble I had with these was when I forgot that I had the Windows XP firewall still turned on and all was fine when I turned it off. (Contro
l Panel, Network Connections, LAN properties (right click), advanced, uncheck Internet Connection Firewall)

Some websites for banking etc are interfered with when using Zonealarm so you may need to shut it down temporarily to use them. However I have only come across one of these so far out of all the websites I have visited.


If you are paranoid about security you can always get encrytion programs for your documents and a good anti-virus program. Mainly because the password protection on Office documents is very easy to hack and up-to-date anti-virus will ensure no programs or anything on your computer can cause any mischief.

But at the end of the day your computer is one of millions of the internet and the chances of a hacking attempt are small. Keep your very sensitive information on a disk and lock it up and leave the rest on your PC - who wants to trawl through a computer just to look at some holiday pictures, old letters and clips of a squirrel being fired from a clay-pull or other 'humour'?


So on the whole I have found it the best firewall to use, generally because you can install and forget about it after choosing a few options and allowing programs onto the internet. It did not give any hassle and mess about with my email settings as one other firewall I had did (Norton 2000). It is much better than the Windows XP firewall, which prevents you using
some programs and utilities on the internet. Best of all the basic version is free!

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