For some considerable time my FireWall has been ZoneAlarm, the one drawback is that as that is the Free version you keep getting emails about upgrading to the Pro version.
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I have been more than happy with what was provided by the basic Zone Alarm package that you can download from their site, however you will have to look around a bit to find it as of course they would rather sell their Pro or Security Suite packages.
Here I am looking at a boxed product that is sold in the UK by Avanquest and their dealers. On first installation you will find you need to clear any Internet access so even Internet Explorer or Outlook Express the two basic components for most people need authorizing. For the first few days you will get quite a lot of pop up boxes asking for authority to let this and that access the Internet. In most cases these are modules that you want to allow. If you are unsure you can say no and then you will probably get a complaint from the program that was running.
It is possible to tell Zone Alarm to remember your answer be it yes or no, however I tend to only do this for things I am sure about. There is to me anyway a reassurance about an unseen program being stopped from access unless you agree.
I have often run various programs to check on my FireWall vulnerability and Zone Alarm always seems to pass. It seems to hide the PC in something called stealth mode.
A new feature is Anti Virus monitoring and this not only tells you when your Anti Virus software is out of date something in fairness that it will probably do itself but also tell you when it is disabled and should you not have disabled it yourself this is a good warning that something nasty could be around.
E-Mail monitoring for both inbound and outbound messages. For inbound it will stop autorunning attachments however the best advice is never open any attachment from anyone you do not know and outbound it looks for any virus like activity. Best of all I have noticed no discernable speed reduction since Zone Alarm Pro with its extra features was installed.
Additional features also include a Pop Up Blocker and ID Lock the latter notifies you whenever personal information is about to be transmitted from your PC.
I suspect that you could download this from the ZoneAlarm site for less however you would not get an excellent 256 page manual that you do in the boxed product. The other minus point to a download is what do you do should you need to reformat your hard drive. With a boxed copy and a CD its an easy reinstall. The stated price is £39.99 but I suspect their dealers may well discount this. I note that www.dabs.com currently have it for £26.73.
www.guildsoft.co.uk click products, click Zone Alarm, click Zone Alarm Pro.
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