Zone Alarm in Win7 =Ugly

[WackyDan]

I've used Zone Alarm on most of my systems with no issues.

In moving to Win7 32 ultimate on my ThinkPad, I installed the latest Zone Alarm.

I've had numerous issues.

- Not able to download files: process quits
- Web sites won't load on first try
- images display garbled... but random.. Doesn't happen on every page or for every image.
- ton of issues connecting to NAS.

Disable Zone Alarm and most issues go away.
Disable Win7 firewall service and most issues go away.

I think ZA really buggered things up. I'm almost to the point of wiping the system and starting over and just trusting the Win7 firewall.

So... Anyone run into the same thing? Is the Win7 Firewall up to par to simply rely on that?

Thanks.

 

[lxskllr]

I haven't used ZoneAlarm in years. When it works it works great, but the devs resolve that issue by regularly breaking it with updates. I use the built in firewall, and it works fine.

 

[JackMDS]

In general, the differences between the top security suits are minute.

Each one might miss something when tested, but in general they provide similar protection.

As long as a person uses a single computer connected to the Internet it does not matter much which one is used.

However it is quite clear that some of the Major 3rd party security suits have difficulties with Win 7. The pronlem stems from these Suits difficulties (lack of flexibility) to handle variety of Networking situations that depends on the OS and the variety of network peripherals in use.

If you spend time on Computer's Networking Forums you will amazed of the number of users that in order to have a functional LAN and Internet connection have to Uninstall the 3rd party suits and clean their computers from the security suits running processes that block LAN traffic.

--------------
My strategy.

The First level of protection with Broadband Internet connection is using a Cable/DSL Router even if the Network is comprised of one computer. The Router's NAT Firewall & SPI providing very good inbound protection. The Router’s WAN side also takes care the ISP's connection's authentication, thus keeps the connection always alive.

On each Networked computer, use Windows Vista/Win 7 Advanced software Firewall, and install the free Microsoft Security Essentials as AV and Antispyware applications.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

It all working smooth, on both Cable Internet and DSL, maintaining very good Internet/Network security, without adding any cost to each computer.

I configured many computers on peer-to-peer networks with security configured as described above, many of them are Giga LANs, and they all working very well and secure, achieving LAN transfers up to 70MB/sec. (B=Byte).

The only time that I deviate from this, routine is when it is essential to get Visual feedback during Internet/Network activities and actively control any application that tries to connect to the Internet.

In such cases I usually disable Windows native Firewall, and use PCTools Firewall, it is free, small, and minimally intrusive Software Firewall. The download is only 10MB, and the active processes in RAM use about 14MB).http://www.pctools.com/firewall . It flexible pop-up and traffic indication helps to efficiently control the allowed connection list.

 

[ViRGE]

I haven't used ZoneAlarm in years. When it works it works great, but the devs resolve that issue by regularly breaking it with updates. I use the built in firewall, and it works fine.

Agreed; the Windows firewall is perfectly fine for inbound protection. The only thing it lacks is user-friendly outbound protection, and at this stage I'm not convinced that's necessary - it causes far more trouble than it solves.

 

[Mem]

Agreed; the Windows firewall is perfectly fine for inbound protection. The only thing it lacks is user-friendly outbound protection, and at this stage I'm not convinced that's necessary - it causes far more trouble than it solves.

Agreed!....Windows 7 firewall with UAC enabled plus my hardware firewall on my router has been good enough.

I don't really see the need to use a third party software firewall nowadays.

 

[zerogear]

Comodo Firewall :]