BlackIce Defender and ZoneAlarm

[SaturnX]

Alrite,
Well I have a few questions, I know that BlackICE is for incoming monitoring, while ZoneAlarm is both In/Out going. I'm wondering, with ZoneAlarm, are ping requests blocked when using it? (ie. if one pings you they will get no respone?) Also with BlackICE gaming works great when hosting servers and such, but with ZoneAlarm do I have to give EVERY single program that uses the net access? Meaning, would I have to go and give all my multiplayer games access to the net before I play?

Thanx,
Mark

Also, other than price, any reasons I shuld go with ZoneAlarm, rather than BlackICE?
What does ZA do that BI doesn't?

 

[shadowfaX]

I don't quite remember BlackICE plugging up my ports when someone tried to ping me or something. When I played online games, BlackICE scream warnings (well... not that drastically) but nothing would happen. If I didn't allow ZA to access the games though, it'd plug up the ports quickly. Yes, you have to allow/disallow programs that want to access the 'net. Of course, you could always click on the "Allow" setting for the program... and if you want to play online games, just click on "Allow server" for that game. It gets annoying but it's rather useful if you downloaded an illegit program that turns out to be a trojan horse and you don't know it... (happened to me once - took me awhile to figure out that the "nameless" program on the ZA program list was a trojan horse) I think ZA, as a free program, does a pretty good job of stealth for most purposes.

 

[Davegod75]

i like zonealarm. giving net access to your games isn't a big deal at all. only have to do it once.