Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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127 of 130 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Complete Security Package, October 14, 2004
I purchased this package just 5 days after buying Trend Micro Internet Security 2004, as I needed a suite for a second computer and I had only a single license. My second system was running Norton Internet Security 2003 (NIS2003), and I was getting frustrated by the memory footprint and resource consumption of NIS2003 (the antivirus in particular) and decided that I needed to make a change. On the recommendation of the system administrator at the office, I decided to purchase ZoneAlarm Security Suite 2005 (ZSS2005).
I should preface this review by saying, rather bluntly, that I prefer the Trend package. Trend is smaller and faster, which are my two main sticking points when it comes to software. However, Trend also lacks some of the refinements found in bigger packages. I did not make a mistake buying ZSS2005, though, and am happy with my overall decision.
The most important components of the package are the firewall and the antivirus. I will talk to these points first, then discuss the rest of the suite.
The firewall is generally regarded as the best on the market when it comes to software solutions. Those reviews are on-target. The firewall is extremely highly configurable, easy to manipulate, and a bear to bypass. There are settings for nearly everything - setting ranges of IP addresses and ports to filter out, high/medium/low settings via sliders to define general behavior, and program access not unlike that found in NIS. Access to the settings is done through a dialog that is easy on the eyes and laid out in a very logical and clear manner. There should be no problem finding anything you need to find in the interface.
The alerts that the firewall sends are glaring and unmistakable, so that if there is some kind of activity you want to know about, you cannot help but know about it. With a button click you can dismiss the alerts, and if you are tired of them you can tell the firewall to be quiet and the alerts get toned down.
Program access to the internet is done in a manner similar to that of NIS, where each program is handled individually. This can be configured to be automatic, or it can be done on a case-by-case basis via manual action. The choice is yours.
If you're daring and you know what you're doing you can even establish your own custom rulesets for the firewall.
The other primary feature, the antivirus, is based on Computer Associate's scanner engine, and it seamlessly integrates into the package without trouble. While not especially fast at scanning, this antivirus actually lets me run scans in the background while I do other things. Granted, I wouldn't want to load up Doom3 or something like that while running a viral scan, but opening an app or two and doing a little work while the virus checker merrily does its thing is not a big deal. Sure, it slows down the other processes, but it doesn't completely kill the box like McAfee, Norton or Trend do.
The antivirus does have the ability to check email (inbound and outbound) for infection, and the base settings are simply on or off. Further controls allow for handling of attachments based on file extension.
There are several minor features of this firewall, some of them useful and some needing a little refinement. One of the nice features is a parental control facility. The configuration of such is very straightforward - on/off via radio buttons. There are many categories to choose from when deciding what to block or allow, and this list is straightforward. Once set, it is quite efficient and is independent of browser choice. It appears to rely on a lookup server as opposed to keeping a local copy of the list - this may or may not bother you, so consider this when enabling this feature.
One of the less refined features is the ad blocking, which hides in the privacy settings. I have found that it does not do as nice a job at blocking banner ads as I would hope and it lets a few slip through. This may improve down the road, but for now I personally am a little disappointed.
ZSS2005 has the ability to secure instant messaging transmissions as well. However, it requires that the person with whom you are communicating also have ZSS2005. Otherwise, everything stays unencrypted. This does make sense.
There is a setting for blocking spam, but this is misleading. The spam to which this setting refers is unsolicited instant messages, not email. There is apparently no email antispam functionality in this suite, which is something a lot of other packages offer, even if the feature is typically limited in scope. If you already have an antispam solution, great. If not, do not expect ZSS2005 to be of much help.
ZSS2005 is a nearly comprehensive solution that does a good job protecting your system while connected to the internet. It is fast enough to satisfy, it has a small footprint in memory, and is very light on resources. Although it is a newcomer on the internet security suite market, this one is absolutely worth a look. It has a good balance of power, speed and price.
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64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great product, but read on..., February 13, 2005
I have had this software for about 2 months now, and here are the important points:
PROS:
1- Firewall, anti-virus, email junk and virus monitoring, web filtering, parental control, ID lock, vault, IM security, and program control.
2- GREAT firewall.
3- GREAT email junk monitoring.
4- Does not use too many resources.
5- easy to understand and setup most of the options.
CONS:
I think this is what everyone is looking for the cons so here I go:
1- Lousy virus protection:
I say this from experience, I subscribe to many newsgroups and I use outlook to get my mail (pop), I was using Zone Alarm (ZA) for email junk filter as well as the sole virus protection on my system. It caught couple of viruses in the first couple of weeks. It was also updating it's virus definitions regularly (auto). then a while later I noticed that the Homepage on my browser had changed, as well as my computer being a bit off. So I did an online virus check with Symantec (Norton) and it found 3 viruses on my system. I wrote there locations down and then did a manual virus update to my ZA and asked it to check the specific folders where the viruses were found. Zone alarm came back with nothing, it did not detect them. So I turned ZA antivirus off, and installed my old but still great Norton Anti Virus 2002 ( I like this one because it uses less resources than the 2005 version). Updated the definitions and scanned. It came up with 9 . YES 9 infected files (3 unique viruses). and from then on, I opted on keeping Norton on the side of ZA (which I now had the anti virus option off)
2- Sometimes the installation will not go as smoothly as it should. Yet this is easily corrected by uninstalling and re-installing.
3- the junk e-mail monitoring of ZA for outlook sometimes goes off with no prior warning (the zone alarm buttons on outlook will disappear). I have not yet discovered why this happened (only once for me). I re-installed ZA and now it has been working for the past month.
4- The privacy controls (cookie monitoring and Ad blocking) are not very easy to tune. What I mean by that is that when you activate these controls, you will in many times be not allowed on certain websites. I guess I just did not have the patience to tune them yet.
5- Does not work with all pop mail programs. I know that It does work with outlook and outlook express, but as for others please check carefully.
Summery:
In MY opinion this is a great product. Yet I give it 3 stars mainly because of it's lousy virus protection and some insatiability with it's web filtering (junk mail blocking). Yet I still think this is one if not THE best all in one security available at the moment. It uses much less resources than any of the TOP internet securities, and it is far more stable. I also like that it DOES NOT conflict with other virus protection (Norton 2002 in my case) IF you opt to turn it's virus protection off. Actually it keeps an eye on your other program's virus definitions and alerts you if they are outdated. At the price that Amazon is selling this product at (rebate of $30) I would give it 4 stars.
Layth
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not perfect, but the best around, June 1, 2005
After going insane with the new version of Norton Systemworks 2005, which doesn't even install, I decided to finally swear off all Symantec products.
I have used Zone Alarm Pro for some time. It's not perfect, but it certainly will protect your computer. I took the plunge and went with the full security suite this week, and I've been relatively happy.
On the plus side, the software works really well. The personal firewall is better than any you can find, and the virus protection found a phishing app that Norton had not (before I had unstalled it).
On the minus side, the firewall can be problematic. I've had page load issues on Ebay and on my own site which has a cgi script to keep my images and files from being hotlinked (bandwidth theft). When I visit my site or any other that has a similar anti-theft cgi script, the images simply won't come up. Ebay gets all messed up as well. I haven't been able to figure out a setting that works, so I have to turn off the firewall on Ebay and a few other sites, which kind of defeats the purpose of a firewall. This doesn't happen a lot though, so it's not annoying enough to get my dander up.
All in all it's been a far better investment than Symantec products, so despite its limitations I would recommend this program. It does have a lot of options to set, but they are pretty easy to get through if you are computer literate.
If you decide to go with this program and you currently have Norton Antivirus, you will need to uninstall Norton before this program will run.
If you were to ask me if I preferred Symantec Systemworks or Zone Alarm Security Suite, there would be absolutely no hesitation in recommending Zone Alarm.
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