Customer Reviews

ZoneAlarm AntiVirus

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

ZoneAlarm Antivirus is a solid product, way better than the buggy and insecure Norton/Symantec Antivirus. ZoneAlarm AV installs smoothly and appears to work silently protecting your PC from virus (but not sinister spyware).

However, you might as well go download the totally free AVG Free Edition 7.5 on Grisoft's website. You get free daily update with AVG for life. One caveat: it's free only for personal use, not business use.

I am going to recommend this for the majority of users and readers because it passes two key tests:
1) it is very easy to use;
2) it does what it does well.

The firewall aspects of ZoneAlarm are unquestionably top-rate. It is effective, clear, and can be tweaked or configured by more advanced users without being out of reach of other users. It ships with a built-in tutorial that even Mom can follow. In short, you get a good firewall with this product.

The antiviral component is well-integrated and works in the same manner. ZoneLabs has excellent help and support, and the free updates alone are worth the purchase price. Yes, you can get free antiviral software, but what you cannot get is an integrated solution such as this, with support, for well under $20. For its listed price, I would wholly recommend this to anyone without sufficient defenses (WinXP's firewall is not sufficient by itself).

-Fred

I've used Norton products on our computers since the late 1980s, and generally have found them to do exactly what they're hyped to do. Over the past few years, however, they have become "bloatware," consuming far more system resources than necessary. If you want a reasonably responsive system, after installing Norton you'd best disable many, if not most, of the "automatic" services set on by default during the installation. I've also used Zone Alarm Pro for ~5 years; love the program and the depth of configuration you can set-never had a problem with Zone Alarm. So, after the last year or so of Norton Anti-Virus failing to start automatically, I started looking for a replacement. I tended to lean towards Zone Labs because of my earlier experiences with them, but the Amazon reviews for the complete Internet Security suite left me unsure. I decided to go with just the Zone Labs Anti-Virus product. First, I opened Norton and turned off everything. Then I ran the Windows System Services console app (services.msc) and turned off or disabled anything with any Norton or Symantec association. Only then did I install the ZL Anti-Virus. A caveat is in order: although the ZL manual says if you have a previous version of a ZL product installed it will ask if you want to proceed without uninstalling the previous version, it didn't. Instead, I was informed that this install would be a "downgrade" from Zone Alarm Pro to "just" Zone Alarm. I went ahead anyway. After installation, the firewall appears to be as was before, and all my settings were retained - good news! Everything appeared to be functioning well. I have a separate anti-spyware app, so losing that capability in the "downgrade" wasn't really an issue. Only then did I completely remove Norton. So far, I'm happy as a clam (touch wood!).

This is by far the best I've ever used. I run a small company and absolutely love it. Very easy to use. Very informative!

I been using Zone Alarm Anti-virus for a couple years. It comes with firewall and antivirus software. Both firewall and antivirus works great... before any software updates. A software update happens when Zone Alarm publishes a new version of software that completely replaces this software. You will be notified when there is a new software ready to download and run. The update happens every three to four months.

The problem is, every time I update my Zone Alarm Antivirus, I ran into software problem that prevent AV from running, at all. Every time, I had to send email to customer service to get help. The turnaround time, from the minute i have problem, to the time the problem gets fixed ranges from several hours to several days. During that time, my computer was NOT protected from virus, at all.

Zone Alarm is good when it works. But beware of the software updates.. it might piss you off.

This product is a very simple to use, extremely efficient tool. I am very pleased with results it produced for me.

CD installs easily, it even comes with a nice short instructional video.

Once installed, ZoneAalarm is fairly unobtrusive, but seems to get the job done.

Well-designed product!

My husband and I bought two copies when it was a Gold Box featured product so he could install it on both of our computers. He is a computer consultant and rates ZoneAlarm at 4 stars because, after using it for a few weeks, we find too many spurious alerts for items that ZA should have had on their "safe" list, particularly the "suspicious activities" of the OS Firewall. This program is puzzling for a casual user such as myself to navigate alone. I would still rather have more protection than I can handle, rather than a dummied-down version that I would understand better but that might not provide the virus protection we need, but he says he wouldn't recommend this to his novice clients unless they wanted a lot of hands-on control of their systems.

I bought this product based on Consumer Reports review. I've had Norton and McAfee in the past which slowed down my system. My computer is slower to start up with ZoneAlarm, but faster than McAfee while on. However, most of the time, I need to shut off ZoneAlarm in order to access the internet - just like another reviewer. Defeats the purpose don't you think? It also recognized my offices's software as a virus and although I allowed access, it keeps showing it as a virus. I'm going to have to go to another product.

I installed this 2 days ago. It installed easily enough...within less than 5 minutes I was doing my first virus scan. It only found one infection, which I don't think is accurate (I think it missed some stuff). Every time...*every* time you connect to the internet or go to a site it will come up with a popup asking you to allow or deny access. Gets very annoying after a while. The last straw came today, when I could sign on to the internet but not access any sites. I ran my Spyware Doctor and my Adaware, they both came up clean. On a whim I uninstalled the ZoneAlarm, and voila my internet starts zooming along smoothly again. This was a total waste of money for me, I only wish I had kept the receipt so I could return it.