Zone Alarm, or...

Jul 08, 2006 16 Replies

I've been running Zone Alarm Pro on several machines for several years, and tolerated its quirks - until now. Finally got fed up when latest version managed to mess with some driver updates, until one thing led to another and I wound up having to do a complete reinstall of the machine.



Now I don't know whether to revert to an earlier version, or live without Zone Alarm and rely on XPs firewall (and my router). Thing is, I did like Zone Alarm's unobtrusive removal of spyware and popup blocking. Can anyone suggest a good replacement for these features, or an alternative approach altogether?



Thanks, Paladin.


Spyware removal does not really work, cannot work. You should not rely on it.

And popup blocking every browser can do itself with one exception - and this exception you better should not use at all.

See the above.

Yours, VB.

"And popup blocking every browser can do itself with one exception - and this exception you better should not use at all."

Huh?

Notan

Internet Exploder in older versions.

Yours, VB.

You need to get it right then and stop making a general statement like that.

Duane :)

Do you mind my asking why you believe that "Spyware removal does not really work, cannot work"?

Thanks.

I agree with:

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Spyware is a kind of malware. There is no exact way to distinguish Spyware from other malware, which implements the Trojan horse pattern.

Yours, VB.

I like that link. It's a keeper.

Duane :)

What about installing disk image(s) that were made prior to the machine being infected with malware. Seems that was overlooked in their solutions. Casey

I recommend outpost.. there is a free version but i have the pro and its good. it has built in spyware scanner(i also run spysweeper too) with good updates, an adblocker (fairly decent too) oh and i think its a firewall too (that was sarcasim yes it is a firewall too!).. well its way better than zonealarm anyway and i have used it for years and found it real good, it is good for newbs too as it has preset rules for most applications so when you open something like dc++ or limewire it will open only the needed ports rather than allowing that app open access ect.

I am a network security consultant so i know what i likes in a firewall.

Flamer.

Sirgruffil wrote:

When is something that doesn't separate two networks called a FW? At best, all it is a machine level packet filter that protects a machine and doesn't meet the qualifications of a FW.

Duane :)

Well i think that would be called a router as something between two networks has to route.. :+) firewalls stop connections outgoing and incoming from untrusted and allows for trusted. (read: drops packets)

Flamer.

Well, a router may or may not fit the bill.

And the only host based solution I consider FW software is one that uses two NIC(s). One facing the WAN and the other one facing the LAN on the host gateway computer.

Duane :)

The point in the suggested solutions is that you restore the system to a known-good state, so yes, restoring from a known-good image is okay too.

cu

59cobalt

Thanks for that. I may just give it a shot.

"Restoring a backup" is a good idea.

Yours, VB.

I doubt the latter, if you didn't notice the security design flaws in Outpost.

Yours, VB.

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