Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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45 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good News/Bad News: Norton vs ZoneAlarm, September 28, 2004
Just bought it today, and installed it. Not 100% impressed, yet!
Executive Summary: I've tried previous versions of Norton ever since they purchased the software-rights to GuardDog and made it Norton... and screwed it up (GuardDog was excellent!). This is the first version of Norton I'm keeping!
After installation, my CPU started cooking. I took a look at my processes running (under Task Manager). The program NMAIN.EXE was using between 98 and 99% of my CPU. A quick file search found it under Symantec Shared files. Called Symantec Tech Support. Solution (which wasn't found in their Knowledge Base) was to increase the "Initial" Windoze Page File size to 2.5 times my memory (512 MB x 2.5 = 1280) and "Maximum" size to 4 times my memory (512 x 4 = 2048). Seems to have fixed the problem (after a Blue Screen of Death during the first reboot, mind you!).
Compared to ZoneAlarm Pro:
1. Norton/Symantec HAS phone support! If Norton determines the problem is YOUR problem, then ya pay $30... but in the above issue, it was FREE!.
2. Norton ANSWERS your tech support questions if you use the free online service. ZoneAlarm, which I'd used for centuries, NEVER answered a single question. Ever!
3. Norton boots MUCH faster than ZoneAlarm.
4. Norton still needs some work. For example, if you tweak the configuration to NOT automatically configure known applications, and you set the options to CHECK other modules for previous authorization, you are going to be bugged to DEATH! And worse, the only two options when you get the "... trying to start an unauthorized module" kinds of messages, the ONLY two options are "Block" and "Allow Once." Ain't no option to "Go ahead and ADD this-here module to the Official OKIE-DOKIE" list. So, if you want the module or program approved, you get to hunt it down and add it manually. Oh, yeah... this is fun! If you leave (or revert) the options at the original settings, the problem goes away.
So, if you want TOTAL control... go with ZoneAlarm. If you want ease of use, but with complete trust in some group of programmers who you THINK know what they're doing (think about it a while: just how stable are the programs you're using now?)... then go with Norton.
Bye-Bye ZoneAlarm!!! Howdy, Norton! Guess I'll have to trust you.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What a waste of time and money, May 15, 2005
I don't recomend this product
after installing you need to activate it
this sounds easy enuff but is a hassle, after a few installs
Norton makes you call their tech suport to get activation numbers
and when I called, their server was down or something
so after push this push that wait on hold etc was told would have to call back again,
if you don't activate it then will work for just 15 days,
its a shame to pay for something that you can't use unless you have lots of time to waste
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poorly documented, extremely unstable, impractical., June 15, 2005
I'll try and stay fairly objective about this. It will be difficult. I installed this on a brand spanking new Win2K SP4 machine. Here is what I've experienced.
1. Poor to no support documentation for this product, either included or on their web site.
2. Default security policy is not adequate. I've installed server apps that the wizard interface said were reccomended safe, which I know darned well aren't. ( therefore requiring rule customization for the apps to work correctly)
3. Adding even basic firewall rules crashes this product, HARD.
4. Does not play well with others, when it does crash, it can 't be shut down or restarted with the task manager, causing a REQUIRED reboot.
5. I have crashed IE and had this product crash queitly without any alert, leaving my box exposed on the network.
6. No ability to configure perpetual logging. You are limited to 2 megs of their binary log format, so essentially all someone has to do to blast your logs off your box is DOS your for about a minute.
(You can take snapshots of the logs, but that still positions you to loose data, particularly in a DOS situation.)
7. Firewall rule base is not exportable, which means multiple hosts have to be indevidually configured. This fact alone makes it impractical in a small office environment.
8. The interface is badly obfuscated. No less than six clicks just to get to the rule base.
9. Their "Check my security" port scanner is bogus. Their port scanner only checks the lower 1024 ports, and depends on some sort of agent (which a good security policy would block anyway) to do the rest of the evaluation. So essentially you get a false "good" evaluation.
I'm in the IT business, and I explicitly DO NOT recommend this product to my customers. I will check amazon.com before purchasing anything from these folks again.
The only thing this product seems to do well is schill their 900 tech support phone number. But after all the time this product has wasted, I feel like they owe _me_ money.
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