Rating: 
Summary: Annoying, flawed, and avoid Broderbund version.
Review: *** This is a partial retraction to the original 5-star review I gave this. I've since abandoned this product for McAfee's Firewall (as bundled with VirusScan 7).The best mix of features, customization, and power has always been AtGuard, but that product has been licensed to Symantec and released as the inferior Norton Internet Security software. I can say that Zone Labs has gotten some of it right, but the Broderbund edition is not updateable and the controls are flawed. Worse? It is susceptible to buffer overflows. Out of the box, its wizard-like setup routine makes it easy for anyone to lock down their machine without screwing up their Internet access. The associated help is relevant and informative, and I would have no problem letting my mother set up Zone Alarm herself (of course, she'll still ask me if she should click on "Next", but that's fine with me). However, after using the product, I can now state with wistful certainty that the granularity, while there, is somewhat lacking. The Privacy Advisor is constantly annoying users, and there's no easy way to limit what kinds of "things" it monitors. Worse, blocking hostnames and IPs isn't very easy, and it should be. Worst? 20-February-2004 saw the news releases of buffer overflow vulnerabilities with ZAP4 and ZAP4.5. The good news is that Zone Labs is making updates available. The bad news is that if you're a Broderbund-originated user, you've already encountered problems with your license not allowing you to update the software. In the end, I got tired of emailing the absolutely stupid Broderbund support people for help, and Zone Labs surprised me by not helping one bit (they actually turned me back to Broderbund without so much as an apology for the denial of help). I went back to McAfee's Firewall, did a little configuring, and I think it'll work for me long-term. I've despaired of ever seeing AtGuard resurrect in my lifetime, and there's no way Norton-Symantec will ever rewrite their NIS product to match its old standard of excellence. So, McAfee it is. Fred
Rating: 
Summary: Invasive, Frustrating; Paranoid Company...It Ate Windows!
Review: ... After installing this, with updating privileges for one year, my latest update featured a temp and cache file purge button. After pushing it, it deleted a good number of legit windows directories, and I am now one full week or so into reloading everything. I am talking into the GIGabytes of data lost. Unfortunately, Zone Alarm 3.0 Pro, purchased at full price, was last updated to 4.5, and NO rebate sent for ever, and it ate my files. Now it WILL NOT load onto the computer, after mindlessly dialing to Verisign for signature registration. Phone help and customer response is non existant. This is a malicious program in my opinion with more chance of BEING the virus, and online STALKER of your every move, by encoded identification on your hard drive, than many of the viruses out there,=(my experience here.)=(search for Broderbund on your hard drive...) Stay away. Beware. Wonderful if you don't mind THEM calling all the shots, and following your every move, and crashing your hard drive. It is true, God help you if you need technical support. They will prompt you to pay or you will get unhelpful, pages for idiots. Verisign sends data ID on your electronic registration. Great if your hard drive never needs reloading. The phone and address of Broderbund are kept more secret than the black box combination to the nuclear launch codes.
I suspect in an effort to positively keep themselves from having multiple copies made at their expense on your computer, they have effectively:
1-kept rightful owners from successfully loading the software
2-prevented reloading of software after crashes
3-Forced positive identification through verisign that can track you all around the net possibly by outside hackers
4-By their very own self-serving security methods, have caused the very thing their product is bought to prevent... crashes, trojans, tracking of individuals. In my opinion, this is a direct infraction of the anti-wire tapping privacy amendment to the constitution. IMAGINE...Software on a CD that only loads after checking onto the net and getting an OKAY from verisign...a security RISK right there. If you use casual surnames for your harddrive that you do not write down, you probably will come to this very point.
BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE. Recopy your files to a CD and reburn the thing IF you buy it. Make sure it works. I used to hate Norton, because of their hands in your wallet policies, but there is a new champion on the net. STAY with Norton. Norton never gave me this much trouble. I HAVE NO MONETARY INTERESTS OR CONNECTION WITH NORTON OR ZONE LABS OR BRODERBUND. Just figure as long as you pay for a product, you should be able to EASILY use it. Also , consider the download. Broderbund is NOT user friendly. If you download it, Zone Labs will directly support your copy. They do NOT support the BOX purchase at retailers. And BRODERBUND certainly does not. Phooey.
Rating: 
Summary: Ridiculous Accusations...
Review: ...by shills for the competition or by clearly uniformed and novice PC users. If one's PC needed to have nineteen files deleted that's a problem with one's machine and the obvious lack of maintenance or registry care--not a Zone Alarm problem. I've run this under all 9x environments plus XP and have never had ANY problems with it. Again, don't take my word for it. Take it from a disinterested party: Steve Gibson and grc.com. And certainly don't take the word of without the courage to sign their opinions. Zone Alarm is, hands down, the best Consumer firewall there is. I believe Steve Gibson over someone who won't even put their name on their review--working for Black Ice or Norton or Network Associates? From the reading of certain reviews, it's pretty clear what's going on. I do NOT hide behind silly aliases. I have the courage to sign my name; I do not need those too cowardly to do so impugning my integrity. Just for the record--and I'll use small words so the spinmeisters don't have to run to their dictionary every second word... TO MAKE THIS AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE, I do not NOW nor have I EVER: a.) worked for Zone Labs;
b.) owned any stock or any interest in Zone Labs;
c.) TO MY KNOWLEDGE I AM NOT RELATED TO ANYONE, NOR HAVE I EVER KNOWN ANYONE WHO HAS WORKED FOR OR OWNED ANY STOCK OR INTEREST OR HELD ANY DEBT IN ZONE LABS OR INTERMUTE. So grow up! It's funny how the first thing competitor company's flacks do is attack fans of this or that piece of software by impugning their integrity. "They must work there or they wouldn't like it." What kind of logic is that? It so silly it's not even in the same hemisphere as sophistry. In fact, it's the first sign that the accuser is planting negative reviews instead of honest ones. Because if everyone had written an HONEST one, instead of, at their boss' request, retyping a competitor's sheet of talking points, laguhably calling it a "review" rather than a hatchet piece, they would cheer ZoneAlarm. And the customer service from Zone Labs is excellent. I got great service when I had some issues with another one of their products. Don't believe the lies printed in some of these reviews about this product and this company...especially reviews from people without the courage or integrity to identify themselves. Exactly what are they hiding? As with their lack of computer knowledge, it's all too obvious.
Rating:
Summary: Seems ok, once it is configured
Review: Any type of firewall is important, especially if you are always connected. Once this is configured and you get used to it, it's pretty nice. Install the demo from their site first and use it for awhile, then decide.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE!!!!!
Review: Defenders of ZoneAlarm either have not used this product long enough to have their machines damaged, or they are loyalistic employees of the company trying to drum up business. ZoneAlarm is a firewall based mainly on image and advertising, not on the quality of the product. Its features are average, and depending on the version you buy you could be paying for more than you bargained for. The Pro version tries to do too much and is best called BLOATWARE. The popup blocker is excellent -- at blocking popups you do want to see as well as the ones you don't. If you aren't online 24/7 with a cable connection, then don't even bother with a firewall, they are largely ineffective and only create paranoia in the end-user. Otherwise, your router firewall should be sufficient to deal with unwanted connection attempts. ZoneAlarm is entirely based on paranoia advertising, creating a psychological dependency in the end-user who is thus willing to sacrifice a smoothly-running machine for this trashware in order to gain a false sense of security.
Rating:
Summary: Simply The Best
Review: Easy to setup, Easy to use and very secure. If you are serious about keeping your PC safe this is the program to get. My only fault with it is that it slows your browsing down a little bit but this is only due to it blocking pop ups and 3rd party cookies. It is by far the most reiable protection you can get however it does have some stability issues on some systemsand Zone Labs has pretty poor tech support.
Rating:
Summary: crappy registration, poor upgrade choice(s)
Review: First, the good news.
1. The product worked okay, when I installed ONLY the program off of the CD rom [no updates/upgrades]
2. Tech support responded quckly.
The bad,
1. Registration key problems. Your initial install, w/o a registration key, gives you like 15 days [or 30, I forget].
Since it gave you like 15 or 30 days to get the key installed correctly, it wasn't a big deal. But it involved dealing with a 3rd party, Encore.
2. I finally got my ZA4 Pro [the boxed version], registered, and it said I was good for 370 days.
3. Then it went to auto-update. They offered a FREE Update/upgrade to a current version security suite. It was the ONLY update offered, so I took it.
I installed the auto-update and it then reverted to a 15 or 30 day expiration. It started asking for a product key.
4. and SURPRISE, the regular key [from the CD] is no longer working.
5. a real pain-in-the-buttocks
6. I removed everything associate with ZA.
I re-installed ZA4 pro and left it. No update, no upgrades.
It's working again, it has 370 days until expiration.
I'm not touching it again, now that it is workngi.
Rating:
Summary: Seems ok to me !
Review: I am running zone alarm (not the pro version) and have
read lots of horror stories about it. I am having no
problems at all with it. It has cured many problems I've had and helped me identify
viruses etc.
Rating:
Summary: Crippled copy V 4.0 forever
Review: I bought a 2nd copy of this program to use on my other computer. I received a crippled copy that required registration to receive a key by e-mail that would entitle me to 12 months of free updates and upgrades. I registered it when requested during installation and after a few days had NOT received the key. I e-mailed tech support and received a confused response telling me that I had to either register it with Broderbund or with Encore USA. I thought I had registered it with Broderbund but registered as well with Encore USA and have still NOT received a key from either Broderbund or Encore. When I tried to call Encore, I was kept on the line 15 long distance (NJ to CA) minutes without being able to connect with customer service. I finally hung up. I now have a crippled copy of ZA Pro 4 that I can't register and can't update or upgrade. Their customer service ISN'T. The product is good but it's worth nothing if registration is impossible thus making it impossible to update or upgrade.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't buy because manual is useless
Review: I didn't buy the product because the manual, posted online at Broderbund, is unusable. 271 pages with no table of contents and no index. Maybe the product itself is wonderful, but it is hard to think so with a manual like that.
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