Zone Alarm Pro

by Broderbund

Product Features

• Personal Firewall and Advanced Mailsafe protect you from any online spies, viruses, trojans or other threats
• Hacker Tracking pinpoints the origin of anyone who tries to break into your system
• Automatic Intrusion Blocking recognizes, blocks and logs dangerous threats
• You can also eliminate those annoying pop-up ads that come up while you browse
• Block your Web activities from spam and marketing ploys with Cookie Control

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000068U68
• Item model number: 381569
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,366 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #98 in Software > Networking > Security
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Protect your PC against dangerous viruses, malicious hackers, intrusive cookies, and the annoyance of unwanted Internet ads with ZoneAlarm Pro 3. This complete security solution provides solid protection around the clock--even for "always on" DSL and cable modem connections.

Stay protected more easily than ever with the new quick-start tutorial and program wizards. Pinpoint and map the origin of would-be intrusions with new, advanced hacker tracking. Free yourself from annoying Internet ads with new, customizable ad blocking. Shield your system from intrusive cookies with powerful new cookie control. Make smart security decisions with the help of the new Security Advisor feature. Prevent e-mail-borne viruses from spreading with enhanced MailSafe protection, which guards against 46 types of suspicious attachments.

Product Description

With ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0, you've got a barricade between your computer and the dangers of the online world! Stealth Mode makes your computer invisible on the Internet Wireless Network Protection detects wireless networks for protection on the go It's the perfect set of protective tools for your personal computer!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Firewalls 101: ZoneAlarm Pro lives up to the hype., February 13, 2003

By 

Miguel K. (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zone Alarm Pro (CD-ROM)

After reading the negative reviews regarding ZoneAlarm Pro 3, I must conclude that the majority of the individuals responsible for them either lack a basic understanding of firewalls, didn't know what they were doing, or experienced software conflicts resulting from multiple programs trying to do the same task at the same time!

It is important to realize that, by their very nature, every firewall is likely to block access to a legitimate website or program. This is not a bug, but rather the firewall doing its job - and doing it well.

If all you need is a basic yet powerful firewall, then by all means download the free ZoneAlarm from the Zone Labs website. You will not find a better deal anywhere.

For more comprehensive protection, consider upgrading to another ZoneAlarm product, or buying one of the firewalls offered by Norton or McAfee, for example.

In the case of ZoneAlarm, there are two "premium" versions available: ZoneAlarm Plus and ZoneAlarm Pro. Both offer enhanced protection against e-mail malware such as trojans, the ability to trace the origin of a hacker attack, and access to technical support via e-mail. The Pro version also offers Privacy Controls. Frankly, there's no good reason to spend $39.99 on ZoneAlarm Plus when you can own the Pro version for less money.

Those users running Norton Antivirus won't need the added e-mail protection offered by ZoneAlarm Pro. And discovering that someone in South Korea, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil or California is trying to access your computer is amusing, but the novelty of this feature wears off rather quickly. So the question becomes: Are the Privacy Control features worth the money? Maybe. ZoneAlarm Pro does a great job blocking annoying pop-up ads, but there are other programs that accomplish this as well. Yet, having a single program handling both firewall and privacy duties is desirable, as you avoid possible conflicts which might arise from multiple programs. By the way, having a pop-up killer running simultaneously with ZoneAlarm Pro's Privacy Controls is asking for trouble.

Setup for all versions of ZoneAlarm is painless and takes less than five minutes. If you opt for the Pro version, I suggest you turn the Privacy Controls off during the initial setup. This will enable you to identify any issues which might result from the firewall itself. Also, if you are running Windows XP, it might be a good idea to disable the operating system's native Internet Connection Firewall. (You can run ZoneAlarm along with a hardware firewall without problems, though). After you've had a chance to get familiar with the firewall and its features, set the Privacy Control settings to Medium, and see how things go.

With the Privacy Controls on, some websites might not display properly (e.g., animated e-greetings might not do anything!), or access is denied. You can easily customize a given website's privacy settings from the firewall's main control panel, though, so that only those sites you trust are allowed to place cookies on your PC or display pop-up and banner ads. Overall, ZoneAlarm Pro's Privacy Controls are useful and work as expected.

Support for ZoneAlarm Pro could be better, and this is the reason I am not awarding it five stars. In my experience, issues involving the firewall itself are addressed promptly and in a satisfactory manner. The same cannot be said about issues involving the Privacy Control functions. Thus, it is imperative that you take the time to learn how to customize settings for individual websites. Doing so will allow you to take care of most of the problems you might encounter in this area. Zone Labs knowledge base is helpful, but far from comprehensive. The help files are quite good, and you can also download a more detailed User's Manual from the Zone Labs website.

Regardless of the firewall you install, make sure to test it by visiting the Gibson Research Corporation's Shields Up!

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mild improvement over the free version, August 29, 2002

By 

keviny01 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zone Alarm Pro (CD-ROM)

Zone Alarm Pro (ZAPro) 3.0 offers mainly 5 things that the freeware Zone Alarm doesn't: (1) port configuration for each application, (2) cookie control, (3) ad banner blocking, (4) blocking of "mobile code" (i.e. scripts, applets, etc.), (5) "quarantining" of 46 e-mail attachment types.

No. (1) is probably the most noteworthy security addition, but its usefulness depends on the programs you run. It lets you explicitly specifies which TCP or UDP port(s) an application can or cannot use. In the free version, you can only allow an application to use either all or none of the ports (which, admittedly, is good enough for most applications). Some users may find it useful to allow certain ports, while also disallow other ones, that an application can use. For instance, if you run a mail server that offers POP3 and SMTP services, you may want to enable port 110 and 25 while disabling port 143, which is normally for IMAP service that is not always used by mail servers. Also, port configurations must be associated with an application. There is no "global" port configurations available in ZAPro. You are not able to configure a port for all applications. Before you can configure ports, you must add the application to the program list.

(2) and (4) are content-control features that let you control acceptance of cookies and active content. It lets you accept or refuse temporary or permanent cookies, and enable or disable "mobile code" -- scripts, embedded objects, and MIME-type integrated objects. One major plus is you can configure these settings for EACH WEB SITE, which is something you can't do in most browsers. For example, you can enable permanent cookies only for those web sites that require them to function properly; you can disable mobile code for sites that may use harmful scripts; you can set different cookie expiration times for different sites; and so on. There is a "site list" that shows the settings of every site. Every time you go to a new web site, its domain name appears on the site list, so you can modify its settings on the fly. Best of all, even third-party sites appear on the site list, which is useful in dealing with third-party advertising sites that force their way into your browsers (often in the form of pop-up ads).

Some reviewers wrote that ZAPro's ad-blocking feature doesn't work all the time, and pop-up ads are not often blocked. The truth is that advertisers use a variety of ways to create pop-up ads, and I suspect ZAPro's ad-blocking feature cannot catch them all. Some web pages use scripts to create pop-up ads, and you need to disable mobile code in ZAPro in order to block them. Some use cookies to "tell" the web page when to create pop-up ads, and you need to disable cookies. Therefore, you really need to configure DIFFERENT settings for different web sites in ZAPro to deal with them. As mentioned in the last paragraph, this is exactly what ZAPro lets you do.

ZAPro also has the so-called Advanced Mailsafe feature that "quarantines" e-mail attachments. Don't be fooled; this is a useless feature. All it does is RENAME the file extension of the attachments. An e-mail attachment named SETUP.EXE would be renamed to SETUP.ZLn (where n would be from 0 to 9). The problem is obvious: to truly prevent viruses coming out of an e-mail attachment, you need a VIRUS SCANNER. And ZAPro isn't one. Simply renaming the file doesn't solve the problem. Also, after the file is renamed, you are not told what the original file extension was, and you have to open up the ZA log to find out, which is inconvenient. This is poorly designed, poorly implemented feature.

Speaking of the ZA logs, be sure to back them up and read them regularly. They are text files that can be renamed to CSV files so you can import them to a worksheet or database for easier viewing. From the logs, find out which of your ports were probed most frequently, which ones were not probed AT ALL (perhaps ZAPro didn't detect any probe because the ports were WIDE OPEN!), which originating IP addresses have probed your machine the most often, etc. My logs from the last five months show that among the 4000-plus probes detected by ZAPro (which comes to about 20 a day), TCP port 1433 were probed 3000-plus times! (Port 1433 is normally used by Microsoft SQL Server. I do have a MS SQL Server, but it's behind the firewall and invisible from the internet. Also, the popular firewall-testing web site grc.com DOESN'T check port 1433.)

My conclusion is the ZAPro's additional feature are a mixed bag, and they don't justify the additional price.

One last thing is that even though the system requirements don't explicitly say so, ZA and ZAPro do run on Windows 95 (I tested it on OSR2).

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have!!, November 5, 2002

By 

Carol Tessen (Bartlett, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zone Alarm Pro (CD-ROM)

I never thought about a firewall until I got a cable modem connection for the Internet. (Forgive me if I worded this wrong as I'm not a computer tech kind of person.) After reading an article in a PC magazine about keeping hackers out of your computer, I decided it was past time for a firewall. ZoneAlarm Pro 3 was recommended in the same PC magazine so I bought it. (I didn't download it from the Internet, I bought the boxed version.) I did worry if it would get along with my Norton Antivirus software and Norton Utilities that were already installed on my computer. No problem! They don't interfere with each other at all.

I love this software! It is easy to install and easy to understand for us novices. It also works - very well. I can't begin to count the number of times I have been "pinged" every time I go online. It blocks all attempts and tells me, in a pop-up window, the type of access attempt and the originating IP. It tells me when a program on my computer is trying to access the Internet. It has pop-up ad blocking, cookie control, hacker tracing, zone-based blocking and more. Without a firewall, you might be amazed at all the info the outside world can get to on your computer. Install ZoneAlarm Pro 3, and notice the difference in the test. With ZoneAlarm Pro 3 I passed these tests with flying colors!

Other reviews of this software listed here are less than complimentary and I don't understand why. I have never had any problems with ZoneAlarm Pro 3. Keep in mind, however, that I bought the boxed version, not the downloadable version; that may be the difference. This software comes with 1-year free online support. After that you have to pay for each additional year but you will need to do this in order to get the updates. Again, I recommend ZoneAlarm Pro 3 and please note that it is Windows XP compatible.