Zone alarm pro...or?

I personally like sygate personal firewall, free and does not kill resources like zone alarm pro (at least last version I've used was w memory and cpu killer)

I got rid of Zonealarm after all the problems I had with it at school when I wanted to play online games. Sucked immensely. So, currently I run nothing. Haven't had anything happen yet. My roommate this last year didn't even have virus software. I've never tried the Sygate but I sure hope it's better than zone alarm.

Zonealarm gets a lot of good 'reviews' but it is NOT a firewall that can be trusted well. It has many problems and disadvantages from others. There was a very indepth reviews of a number of personal firewalls done by a few security experts 2 years ago and they ripped it. It was their lowest scoring firewall and strongly advised people to not use it. Sygate was a real winner placing first if I remember correctly. If I can find the URL to this I'll post it here tomorrow.

I have Kerio.

Don't use it! WARNING! I used it and it screwed up my MSN messenger (I can't log on but people can see me as logged on) and stuffed up my microphone keep telling me direct x sound was not installed (might be driver conflict???). Once I uninstalled it all was fine again! Now running comb of Sygate and Avast! 4 month and never had problems!

Bah. Zonealarm=ANNOYINGware.

After uninstalling it, I couldnt run Windows Firewall and some ZoneAlarm service was still running. I had to struggle with it till I figured out I had to go to safe mode to take it out by the roots.

I'm one of those folks who's running zone alarm free with no problems at all. I've run a number of tests on it and it stealths my computer completely. I also have no problems accessing the net. You might occasionally have to manually allow a program access, but that's easy. I like it.

Not sure where you read that, but there was an Internet Security expert who actively tested such firewalls and ZoneAlarm did an excellent job at masking the computer; most of the time, it prevented the computer from even being "seen" by other computers.

That being said, the new ZoneAlarm 5.x series is heading down the wrong end of the pool. While ZoneAlarm 4.x was VERY stable and VERY effective, 5.x is trying to be a jack of all trades--which, unfortunately, is killing its stability. Not only is it a massive memory hog--VSMON.EXE alone seems to have more resource holes than a wheel of cheese after a shotgun blast--but its also fairly unstable as far as not crashing is concerned. Plus, random issues tend to popup for no reason--check the ZoneLabs discussion forum for a little more insight.

I've actually used ZoneAlarm since 4.0 was released, and I loved it until recently. IN a thread that was just like this one (kind of), people were recommending different firewalls. Since I had just gotten off my Norton loyalty as well, I decided to give something else a chance. Personally, I didn't like Kerio, which is what somebody recommended, so I gave Tiny Personall Firewall a try (the Windows Firewall is based off of this); it works great, plus it lets you completely disable modules that you don't want, so I have JUST a firewall now.

Just my opinion on it, but honestly, if ZA doesn't bother you, go for it; not only is it free, but its also very secure. However, I'm under the impression that nowadays, just like virus protection, its really not so much about which one is more secure since most of them offer the same levels. Its more about what additional resources you get with it--as somebody said, it received a 5-star rating, but most of those ratings go to the bundled Spyware scanner, anti-virus analyzer, ad blocker, and so on. Unfortunately, its hard to find JUST a Firewall nowadays.

If you're not interested in getting a firewall, why not just use Windows Firewall? You may even have it enabled already; its enabled by default on most new connections if you haven't disabled the firewall altogether. No matter how you look at it though, its very unsafe to run an open computer like that; you no longer have to download something to get a virus, and people can easily slip viruses onto your computer even when you're not on it.

I've been running ZA Pro for a very long time. I used to test 3rd party firewall software and I know my way around it pretty well which might be why I have no problems with it at all. I have no annoying pop-ups, all my games and special apps work fine, etc.

I have never felt that it uses too many system resources.

However, I am always open to better things, so I'm looking forward to reading the source material of Adrenolin's condemning post if he finds the link. In the mean time, I will continue using ZA Pro.

-Doc

Here's a link for Sygate. Sygate Personal Firewall

Redmumba, I may give Tiny a try... I like stripped down software.

-Doc

http://www.download.com/Sygate-Perso...ml?tag=tab_rev

looks good... I'll give it a try.

Kerio free personal firewall. I find it easy to configure, takes up very few resources, is small and reliable - and free in the basic version.

A check of my ports using Shields Up (http://grc.com) showed all stealthed = hidden.

I stopped using ZA since it will not let your primary hard drive spin down ever. I now use Sygate which does not have that issue.

Agnitum Outpost Firewall. I spent a LONG time going through reviews etc. searching for the best firewall. After using Outpost for quite a while now I am very happy with it. A word of caution, however. This firewall provides extremely strong and robust control over network traffic but requires time to configure to run efficiently. It will take a little time going through the documentation and user forums at Agnitum but the effort is well worth it in my opinion. All in all you will come out of it with a stronger understanding of what exactly is going on with your box. If you are looking for a more straight out of the box solution then Zonealarm is probably your best bet.