Zone Alarm Security Suite 6 £25 on Amazon. Any good?

tomstickland

I want to set up a proper firewall and anti virus protection on my computer.

How does Zone Alarm suite 6 rate?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000A1LGHU/qid=1134763183/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/026-3548479-8469227

Answered my own question!

And so...I bought ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite v6 largely as a result of it being PC Pro's A Listed product. I haven't been disappointed so far. For £41, it's cheaper than the equivalent Norton products and works fairly seamlessly. It's found evidence of 19 spies not picked up by my previous protection and (unlike Windows Firewall) allows me to upload my Web Site through FTP without having to turn the firewall off. It is producing a lot of alerts at the moment as various bits of software like Realplayer try to bury themselves in my registry, but it does seem to learn and the help screens are good. It's one of those programs that you can either install and forget or play with the settings to your heart's content if you're so disposed.

tigermatt

I have seen this on the ZoneAlarm website but never actually took any interest in it. Now that I have, I can tell you that it has a firewall, Anti-Spyware and Anti virus, ID and Privacy protection, Email security, Phishing (more info) Blocker and all sorts of other features.

If you just want one package with all of the Internet Security included, then this looks like a very good product to go for, although there are other products on the market. Personally, I don't purchase the Internet Security products - I use separate products for each of my different types of defence. (e.g. Anti virus, Firewall and Anti-Spyware)

As I said previously, there are other products on the market, as you can see here: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=14171850734&action=c2hvd3N1YmNhdGVnb3J5X3BhZ2U=&subcat_uid=1164. Personally, I would choose the McAfee Internet Security Suite option if I was purchasing a single package. This is because they are well established and I would trust them more with my computer's security, but this is a personal opinion.

However, if you change your mind and want to use separate, free products for each type of defence in your computer's security, here are some great products - the ones I use in fact.

• Anti virus: AVG Free Edition
• Firewall: ZoneAlarm (Free version)
• Anti-Spyware: Spybot - Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware SE (link goes to Download site)

The Internet Security suites offer a great package, which has a consistent and (usually) easy to use control panel from which you can access all of your components - e.g. Anti virus, Firewall etc. However, running separate tools may give you more power as you are using different companies' software, and different programs may be more vigilant than others.

If you are looking for a good package which is easy to use and has the required security components, then, I would recommend the ZoneLabs package. I just thought I would give you some other products you can use if you wish and some other information.

Please post back if you have any queries,

tigermatt

tomstickland

Thanks for that thorough review. I'm quite happy about fiddling around with computers, then again I quite like the idea of just spending the money on one package. I've inherited this computer (4-5 year old Dell Dimension T500, how can I find out what processor it's running and RAM size?) and so far it's cost just £20 for the network card, versus £400 for a complete machine. So I'm happy to spend a bit of money on it.

I've also been looking out for a soundcard so I can play MP3s and whatever to my hifi system. How much do I have to spend before the card is any good? For example, what's a £15 card like, such as http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000121TA2/qid=1134765717/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_3_6/026-3548479-8469227

Or do I spend more like £50 to £70 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000ERWGA/qid=1134765717/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_3_10/026-3548479-8469227)?

I could buy on Ebay, but I want a zero hassle result and for the cost Amazon looks pretty good.

intel

For the insides of a PC http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
and http://www.lavalys.com/news.php?article=31&selcat=PR&lang=en

For CPU http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

tomstickland

I've just tried the first link. What a brilliant tool.
500MHZ Pentium III
32KB primary cache
512KB secondary cache
256MB of memory with room for a further 128MB

Quite respectable - seems to run really well.

tomstickland

Hmm, I think I'll install zone alarm free version right now.

What's the deal with Windows Firewall? Should I turn that off once I have ZA working?

intel

tomstickland wrote:

Hmm, I think I'll install zone alarm free version right now.

Or maybe Kerio and AVG or Kerio and Avast Just dont have two AVs running at the same time the same goes with Firewalls apart from Windows default firewall and another firewall.

tomstickland

Just answered my question!
So does the Windows firewall do much?

intel

tomstickland wrote:

Just answered my question!
So does the Windows firewall do much?

Nah not a lot and can sometimes be disabled by superior Firewalls.

tigermatt

tomstickland wrote:

Just answered my question!
So does the Windows firewall do much?

No, the Windows Firewall doesn't do much at all - well, not as much as ZoneAlarm. You can safely disable it once ZoneAlarm is working, I always do, and ZoneAlarm always does the protection. tigermatt

tomstickland

Right, zone alarm free version is now running. Thanks for the advice.