86 replies to this topic

[alfredodedarc]

I was under the impression that Email scanning was an imporrtant function of any antivirus program. ZoneAlarm Free does not do that task, making it a pretty lame entry in the free market.
I tried it for a short while- before their shortcoming was common knowledge- and the popups urging me to buy their program was the final straw for me.
I don't like free programs that are hobbled- and I definitely don't like programs with nag popups!

[+littleneutrino]

I remember back in the day when ZoneAlarm was the GoTo for email and firewall protection however, these days they are rather poor.

[Brian Miller]

They lost the plot after 2002.

[LaP]

Bridgers used to love ZoneAlarm when i was playing Halo.

[Mindovermaster]

I remember them blocking anything. Until you enable every app. Plus, I remember them to be resource hogs.

[z0phi3l]

Just use MSE, it does a great job, ZoneAlarm has been garbage for quite a while

[+Crisp]

Damn, I haven't heard that name in ages!

[Copernic]

Perhaps someone didn't noticed that the latest version of ZA offers Kaspersky Antivirus for free?

[HawkMan]

alfredodedarc, on 12 October 2012 - 19:21, said:

I was under the impression that Email scanning was an imporrtant function of any antivirus program. ZoneAlarm Free does not do that task, making it a pretty lame entry in the free market.
I tried it for a short while- before their shortcoming was common knowledge- and the popups urging me to buy their program was the final straw for me.
I don't like free programs that are hobbled- and I definitely don't like programs with nag popups!

Email scanning is kind of redundant.

With modern virus programs that have network/Internet traffic modules, e-mails first get scanned as they get downloaded, then the email module scans them, then the real time scanner scans the same data when you open the mail or attachment.

But yeah, zone alarm is crap and always was.

If you just want a virus scanner, get MSE want full security, get norton.

[francescob]

MSE doesn't scan the emails while they're downloaded (acting like an email proxy like Norton and other AVs do), it scans the attachments when you open/save them.

[+sc302]

when was it not a joke? my first iteration with software firewalls was zonealarm, the fker blocked gmail, windows updates and a bunch of other crap....even when it was "disabled". the only way to unblock was to uninstall the program. It was the best at stopping you from doing what you want or need to do. Never loaded that garbage on any windows OS ever and everytime that a client had issues with it loaded on, I recommended that they remove it, walked them through the disable process first though just so they could see how great it was at disabling itself and allowing you access.

[+remixedcat]

what sc302 says and then some.... its a bonzibuddy of AV software

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

remixedcat, on 13 October 2012 - 05:06, said:

what sc302 says and then some.... its a bonzibuddy of AV software

I'm not even religious, and I throw an a-men in the air! ^THIS^

[Growled]

I agree, they are indeed a joke. I stopped using them in 2005 when it blew up a computer I was working on and then the next week blew up another one.

[JJ_]

ZoneAlarm FW has been unfit for purpose for a long while now. If you want a decent FW, use Comodo which is free. I have it set up in custom mode to stop anything I don't want calling home from accessing the network. Kaspersky Anti-Virus scans e-mails in real-time and does a good job at it too. Been using both Comodo and KAV in harmony for over 2 years