Hiding the ZoneAlarm tray icon?

[LocutusX]

Okay, ZoneAlarm's a really nice firewall but the damn tray icon is very annoying! I don't want the flashing lights every time something's being transferred... it distracts the eyes! Does anyone know of a way to make the tray icon static or maybe even hide it completely?

 

[jaywallen]

I've seen references to some utilities that control what does and doesn't show in the system tray. There's a PC Mag utility somewhere over on the ZDNet / PC Magazine sites called Tray Magic (or some such) that will hide the tray. I just looked over there to try to find it for you, but their search functions really reek!

I just use autohide to hide the whole taskbar.

Regards,
Jim

 

[LocutusX]

Well it turns out that the ZoneAlarm icon is too difficult for these programs to hide - many can't hide it, others can try to hide it, but whenever it starts acting "dynamic" (lights flashing) my whole system tray goes berserk! So I just uninstalled it. I'm going to try BID, but if that also has a system tray icon which can't be hidden... I'll have to continue trying other firewalls until I find one that does. I really HATE dynamic things on the screen that aren't part of the app I'm running. I also have a banner-ad/animated-gif remover.

 

[jaywallen]

I commiserate with you. I don't actually dislike little icons of these sort all that much, but I do still grumble about all the newfangled graphics on the Web. I guess I'm a throwback. I liked it when it was all text.

I'm not surprised that the ZoneAlarm icon was "too hot to handle" as far as the tray utilities were concerned. Weird that they would choose this design. Since they make let the user choose to install or not install the special toolbar in the taskbar, they could have kept all their "fireworks" there. Anyway, I found the little gizmo a bit annoying, too, which is why I started autohiding my taskbar. But I like the program well enough to put up with the inconvenience.

Good luck in your quest for a good replacement!

Regards,
Jim

 

[jacobnero6918]

Being that it is a firewall I would think the Icon is pretty crucial in that you know it's running. I personally like the Icon in the Tray but maybe they should include a way of turning it off and having a warning when and if it should stop running.

 

[jaywallen]

I don't mind it too much, as long as I'm using the autohide feature of the taskbar. I can glance down there once in a while to see if all is okay. For those who like to be notified, of course, they can turn on the alerts feature that keeps on popping up little balloon dialogs every time an "event" is detected. I've never been a big fan of the Taskbar hanging around when it's not needed, but I'd probably find the thing annoying if I weren't hiding it.

You're right in that any software this vital (firewall or anti-virus) should probably have a provision for alarming the user if it becomes disabled for some reason. Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea for a specialized utility for notifying people when any given non-service process fails.

Anyone know of such a thing?

Regards,
Jim

 

[LocutusX]

I've been using BlackIce Defender lately and I'm not too impressed. It's not really a firewall... more of an intrusion detection program... and it's nice to know all about the various zombie computers who randomly port-probe me (heh) but as a firewall it's pretty useless. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know.

I used to be a fan of @Guard, but it won't work my my PPPoE driver for some reason (RASPPPoE).