Zone Alarm Pro Review
Looking for the best selling PC firewall? Looking for product with a proven track record of stopping hackers and securing computers? Looking for a PC product that is made by a company that protects 100% of the Fortune 100 companies? What you've found is Zone Alarm Pro.
Alcatraz Security has decided to perform a review on Zone Alarm Pro Firewall to see if this world class, award winning, firewall lives up to its reputation. We performed this review on a default installation of the Windows XP operating system. We based the review on several categories including availability, price, installation, resources, support, and most importantly ability. To test the ability of Zone Alarm Pro we tested and reviewed the following:
- Does the application run as a program or an application? Ideally the firewall runs as an application, allowing it to directly tie into the operating system and be managed.
- On what level of the operating system does the firewall run? The higher the operating level, the more vulnerable the firewall is to remote shutdown attacks.
- Does it have a 'Stealth Mode' feature that hides your PC? This feature can make your computer invisible to hackers on the network and Internet. Out of sight, out of mind kind of protection.
- Can it pass three 'Leak Tests'? Leak Tests are used to identify, experiment, and reveal security strengths and weaknesses of various firewalls.
- Can it successfully block Internet attacks? Using Slammer worm, Trace Route, and TCP Probe we test the ability to block the most common Internet Attacks.
Zone Labs makes three versions of the Zone Alarm firewall. We tested Zone Alarm Pro, because it has a full feature set that gives you total security control over the firewall along with Internet Access approval for outgoing programs. We feel these are essential to fully securing your PC.
Availability: Can be found in stores or downloaded from their website at http://www.zonelabs.com
Price: $49.95 for the firewall and, if you choose, $9.95 for a backup disk mailed to you. Zone Labs also offers an extended Download Service so you can access your purchase online for 12 months.
Installation: Zone Labs does a terrific job of guiding the advanced user and novice through the installation of Zone Alarm Pro. It includes many prompts giving the user choices, but always automatically choosing a default option.
Resources: Takes less than 20mb of hard drive space and runs lightly in the background without consuming computer resources.
Support: Technical support is offered through online chat with a virtual technical support agent or browsing FAQs about various issues. A user forum is also accessible but is not an official publication of Zone Labs. No phone support.
Ability:
| Run as Service | Level of App | Stealth Mode | Leak Tests | Attack Blocking |
| Yes | Lowest
| Yes
| 3/3
| Passed
|
The table above shows that Zone Alarm Pro runs as a service, which is ideal. It also runs at the lowest application level of the operating system so it starts before anything else has a chance, and is the last to stop before the computer shuts down. This leaves no opportunity, or time, for malicious attacks to circumvent the firewall. Zone Alarm Pro does have the 'Stealth Mode' feature and is enabled by default. It also passed all three of the leak tests we performed against is while also stopping the Slammer worm, Trace Route, and TCP Probe.
Negatives: The real-time alerting can become annoying, requiring you to acknowledged hacker attempts on your computer. This feature can be obtrusive into your other computer tasks and is better controlled in other programs like Outpost Pro Firewall. This can be turned off within the Alerting section.
Other Features: ID Lock prevents your personal data from leaving your computer. Popup blocking, and Hacker source tracing. Zone Alarm Pro also helps you protect you privacy when you're online by blocking cookies, cleaning your cache, and preventing personally-identifiable information from being passed from your PC.
Summary: Zone Alarm Pro firewall lives up to its reputation as a world leading PC firewall. You can confident your PC is blocking hacker attacks and securing your computers while it's on the Internet. It has solid, proven, reputation of being user friendly, easily installed and configured, while still performing seamlessly. Although you cannot get on the phone with support technician, their virtual support is very impressive. Alcatraz Security believes you will be very pleased, and secure, with Zone Alarm Pro.
Visit the Zone Alarm Pro webpage at http://www.ZoneLabs.com
