Rating: 
Summary: Never had any problems. Works great.
Review: A nice package.
I have never had any problems, not like some of the other folks that have written a product review.The program installed fine. Setup was easy. Automatic updates made life with zone alarm a breeze. Great for computer neophytes, as it installs and sets itself up quite easily. Good product, in my experiences with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Crashes Computer
Review: After having Zone Alarm Pro 3 for several months now I am thinking of uninstalling it. I have to reboot my computer several times almost everyday due to it crashing it. I have Internet Explorer and Windows 98 in a Micron Pentium III. If I shut it down everything works fine which is why I know it's in Zone Alarm Pro 3 program.
Rating: 
Summary: Firewalls 101: ZoneAlarm Pro lives up to the hype.
Review: After reading the negative reviews regarding ZoneAlarm Pro 3, I must conclude that the majority of the individuals responsible for them either lack a basic understanding of firewalls, didn't know what they were doing, or experienced software conflicts resulting from multiple programs trying to do the same task at the same time! It is important to realize that, by their very nature, every firewall is likely to block access to a legitimate website or program. This is not a bug, but rather the firewall doing its job - and doing it well. If all you need is a basic yet powerful firewall, then by all means download the free ZoneAlarm from the Zone Labs website. You will not find a better deal anywhere. For more comprehensive protection, consider upgrading to another ZoneAlarm product, or buying one of the firewalls offered by Norton or McAfee, for example. In the case of ZoneAlarm, there are two "premium" versions available: ZoneAlarm Plus and ZoneAlarm Pro. Both offer enhanced protection against e-mail malware such as trojans, the ability to trace the origin of a hacker attack, and access to technical support via e-mail. The Pro version also offers Privacy Controls. Frankly, there's no good reason to spend $39.99 on ZoneAlarm Plus when you can own the Pro version for less money. Those users running Norton Antivirus won't need the added e-mail protection offered by ZoneAlarm Pro. And discovering that someone in South Korea, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil or California is trying to access your computer is amusing, but the novelty of this feature wears off rather quickly. So the question becomes: Are the Privacy Control features worth the money? Maybe. ZoneAlarm Pro does a great job blocking annoying pop-up ads, but there are other programs that accomplish this as well. Yet, having a single program handling both firewall and privacy duties is desirable, as you avoid possible conflicts which might arise from multiple programs. By the way, having a pop-up killer running simultaneously with ZoneAlarm Pro's Privacy Controls is asking for trouble. Setup for all versions of ZoneAlarm is painless and takes less than five minutes. If you opt for the Pro version, I suggest you turn the Privacy Controls off during the initial setup. This will enable you to identify any issues which might result from the firewall itself. Also, if you are running Windows XP, it might be a good idea to disable the operating system's native Internet Connection Firewall. (You can run ZoneAlarm along with a hardware firewall without problems, though). After you've had a chance to get familiar with the firewall and its features, set the Privacy Control settings to Medium, and see how things go. With the Privacy Controls on, some websites might not display properly (e.g., animated e-greetings might not do anything!), or access is denied. You can easily customize a given website's privacy settings from the firewall's main control panel, though, so that only those sites you trust are allowed to place cookies on your PC or display pop-up and banner ads. Overall, ZoneAlarm Pro's Privacy Controls are useful and work as expected. Support for ZoneAlarm Pro could be better, and this is the reason I am not awarding it five stars. In my experience, issues involving the firewall itself are addressed promptly and in a satisfactory manner. The same cannot be said about issues involving the Privacy Control functions. Thus, it is imperative that you take the time to learn how to customize settings for individual websites. Doing so will allow you to take care of most of the problems you might encounter in this area. Zone Labs knowledge base is helpful, but far from comprehensive. The help files are quite good, and you can also download a more detailed User's Manual from the Zone Labs website. Regardless of the firewall you install, make sure to test it by visiting the Gibson Research Corporation's Shields Up!
Rating:
Summary: You ruined my Christmas holidays, Zone Alarm!
Review: After trying the free version of zone alarm and being barged by the company to buy the pro version, I relented. But it couldn't stop the wicked Christmas hacker gift I received on the morning of Dec 25,2002. The zone alarm was disabled, and so was the time machine feature of my Acer PC. Bottom line, I couldn't recover my files, I couldn't boot from C drive and my harddrive showed several missing files. I am writing from a brand new computer which I never budgeted for, thanks to zone alarm and pest patrol. Thumbs down to both of them
Rating:
Summary: Useless product, useless company.
Review: After using the free version of Zone Alarm for several months I decided to buy Zone Alarm Pro, version 3. The software seemed to install correctly but the main window could not open: it simply froze the entire program every time. I checked their website for help but could not find anything relevant. I emailed them but never received any answer. Result: one piece of useless software from one useless company that thinks customers are walking wallets and nothing else. Save your money: pass on.
Rating:
Summary: Zone Alarm = HEADACHE, AGGRAVATION AND WASTED TIME AND $$$!!
Review: Downloading and installing zone alarm was THE WORST mistake I've made since owning my computer! Immediately upon attempting to install this product my computer shut, restarted, then shut down again. My computer repeatedly continued to do so until I paid a skilled tech to come over and attempt to fix the problem. He was able to get my computer operating again but my access to the internet via cable modem timed out after about 8 minutes. The only way to re-access the internet was to completely reboot, but my internet access still continued to time out after 8 minutes. My internet provider believed the problem was not with my internet access, but with my computer. After uninstalling this zone alarm piece of junk and uninstalling my other anti-virus software, the issue was still not resolved. In the end I had to do a complete system restore on my computer. Right now I have, (12 hours and $100+ dollars later),
finally gotten my computer back to normal (almost). Based on previous reviews and my techs analysis, there was a conflict with Zone Alarm and my already installed anti-virus software that was not resolved by uninstalling Zone Alarm. Apparently "uninstall" doesn't mean "COMPLETELY uninstall" Zone Alarm. This product is worse than any virus I've ever encountered. If you decide to install it after these reviews, then caveat emptor (even if it is free) and heaven help you!
Rating:
Summary: Zone Alarm = HEADACHE, AGGRAVATION AND WASTED TIME AND $$$!!
Review: Downloading and installing zone alarm was THE WORST mistake I've made since owning my computer! Immediately upon attempting to install this product my computer shut, restarted, then shut down again. My computer repeatedly continued to do so until I paid a skilled tech to come over and attempt to fix the problem. He was able to get my computer operating again but my access to the internet via cable modem timed out after about 8 minutes. The only way to re-access the internet was to completely reboot, but my internet access still continued to time out after 8 minutes. My internet provider believed the problem was not with my internet access, but with my computer. After uninstalling this zone alarm piece of junk and uninstalling my other anti-virus software, the issue was still not resolved. In the end I had to do a complete system restore on my computer. Right now I have, (12 hours and $100+ dollars later),
finally gotten my computer back to normal (almost). Based on previous reviews and my techs analysis, there was a conflict with Zone Alarm and my already installed anti-virus software that was not resolved by uninstalling Zone Alarm. Apparently "uninstall" doesn't mean "COMPLETELY uninstall" Zone Alarm. This product is worse than any virus I've ever encountered. If you decide to install it after these reviews, then caveat emptor (even if it is free) and heaven help you!
Rating:
Summary: Simple and effective
Review: Great program. It's really easy to use, and has a useful tutorial. Overall, my impression is that I'm getting solid protection without too much hassle.
Rating:
Summary: zone alarm pro 3. great program.
Review: I bought the retail box, version 2, which included a free upgrade to version 3. Also, 12 months of free updates. Within 15 minutes of installing it, I was being probed by
someone on the other side of the world.
Using the reverse lookup, I found out the location of the prober. A little more research shows the people probing my pc were known
spamming websites/ISPs. Another great feature was the outbound port blocking.
I found various programs that wanted to go out to the web and connect to websites, all on their own.
These were not simply programs with auto-update features.
(Who knows how much of my personal information was disclosed via spyware or theftware, prior to installing zone alarm pro). So far, it's a great program.
Rating:
Summary: Not support available.
Review: I bought Zone Alarm 3.x about 4 months ago. I have had problems with it from the start. The software does seem to do what it is supposed to, but creates a lot of errors on my PC. I have repeatedly asked ZoneLabs for help. I went to the ZoneLabs website, which states "...Our technical support staff is here to... help you solve a technical problem." They also state that they will give preference to customers that purchased their software, and that you will receive help the same day or the next. I am very suprised that they would write that, considering I have had 2 cases running since I bought the software, and I have never had ANY help from them what so ever! The help they are talking about is an automated email basically saying 'download the latest updates'. Wow! Very helpful! After that, they never treated my case individually, and about once a month I receive an email giving solutions to their 5-7 most common cases (I imagine that's what they are!). Conclusion: Buy the software, if you dare, for what it is good at, but do not expect any support at all if it goes wrong.
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