Zone Alarm slowing Internet Access

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.

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?

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

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).

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

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.

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.

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

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

Already has been.