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Zone Alarm slowing Internet Access

I've been having trouble with a couple of PC's I've been building, namely that they've only been getting 250-280KB/s out of my 4MB Cable Broadband.

My main PC was getting 460KB/s so I knew the connection was OK. To cut a long story short, it turns out that Zone Alarm was causing the problem. I found this out after doing a fresh install of XP Pro (SP2) and installing the latest Zone Alarm (v6.0.667). My main PC runs Kerio Personal Firewall which is why it was unaffected.

I've confirmed it by installing and uninstalling ZA several times. Without ZA I can download a single file @ 460KB/s+ using either Opera or IE6. With ZA installed I get 280KB/s max irrespective of the number of downloads.

Shutting down ZA didn't help, nor did uninstalling it at first. Only after uninstalling it and rebooting was the problem fixed.

Both machines that had the problem (1*HP Vectra VL400 P3 933MHZ and

1*Fujitsu Scaleo P4 2.8Ghz) have onboard NIC's, but I did try putting the PCI NIC from my main PC in the Vectra and I was still limited to 280KB/s.

I've never noticed any problems with ZA before, but I've been on 1MB Broadband until recently. It would be a shame if I couldn't use ZA because it's a nice piece of software to put on machines that are going to be used by non-technical people, but I don't think they'll thank me for halving their Broadband speed!

I'm sure if this was a widespread problem it would be well publicised, so I'm rather baffled as to why it's happening and would be grateful for any assistance. If you need any more info please ask, because I'm keen to resolve this problem.

Reply to
DJ
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Presume you've looked at the Zone Alarm forums? Since the fiasco with the release of version 6 screwing up so many computers I avoided updating to it, and now use Sygate instead - just as easy to use and no problems.

Reply to
JIP

Yeah, I've posted a message on the forum but thought I'd ask here in the meantime. I'll have to check which version of ZA I've got on the Fujitsu. I don't think it was the latest but it might still have been v6.

I'll have a look at Sygate as well. Do you have any experience with Outpost Free and if so, do you think Sygate is easier for a non-techie user?

Reply to
DJ

No experience of Outpost, but Sygate was easy to install and is very little different to Zone Alarm in its ease of use.

Reply to
JIP

Having had a quick look at Sygate, it does look interesting but more complicated than ZA.

It was working fine at first but then somehow I managed to stop XP being able to get an IP address from my ISP. I only had two rules, 1 allowing Opera and 1 denying an incoming connection. I probably should have allowed this but changing the rule back to Ask and Disabling and Enabling my NIC and power cycling the modem didn't fix it.

Also for some reason, the bandwidth meter was showing that I was downloading at 800KB/s, when the real speed was around 400KB/S.

As I said, I only had a quick look and it might be suitable for my non-techie friends and family if I can do the initial setup for them. It's certainly intriguing enough to make me consider dropping Kerio for it (with the obvious advantage being that it's maintained and supported unlike Kerio).

Reply to
DJ

Generally only may happen if using the zone alarm suites. They should have just stuck with making a better firewall.

Reply to
Plato

Not much use if you've already paid for ZA Pro!

However, thanks for the tip, I won't renew. I've asked for a refund.

Reply to
Jock

Yeah, I agree they should have just concentrated on the firewall. However I wasn't using a suite, just Zone Alarm Free.

I noticed the other day that Kerio are abandoning their Personal Firewall (v4) at the end of the year (not that I ever liked v4 anyway). On the bright side, this might mean that Sygate pick up some new customers which should give them more incentive to keep their product updated.

Reply to
DJ

I thought I read somewhere that Sygate Firewall was being bought out by Symantec?

Reply to
Cathy De Viney

Too bad.

While Symantec *used to* be a great company, they seem to have done absolutely nothing but ruin the consumer products they've bought up.

Notan

Reply to
Notan

Already has been.

Reply to
Jock

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