Comments on: ZoneAlarm for Windows Vista? Don’t do it

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:20:00 +0000

I got the RAM in my Windows XP laptop upgraded to day and when the techie noticed I had ZoneAlarm (free version) he suggested I get rid of it because of it’s overheads. He told me the Windows firewall is more than enough security.

Does anyone agree with him?

By: Bueler

Bueler — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:21:26 +0000

PS: IF ANYONE HAS HAD ZERO PROBLEMS USING ZONE ALARM ON VISTA, PLEASE POST YOUR POSITIVE EXPERIENCE AS WELL AS YOUR LEVEL OF COMPUTER EXPERIENCE. THANKS.

By: Bueler

Bueler — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:19:11 +0000

So now it’s June 26, 2010, several years after Vista’s release, and STILL people are having problems with ZA and Vista? Why can’t they get it right?

Common Sense’s post tempts me to try ZA on my Vista Ultimate, however, I cannot ignore the vast majority of warning and negative comments against using ZA and Vista, not only on this site, but all over the net!

I’ve used ZA since Win 2000 came out and recall no such prevalence of negative comments on ANY pre-Vista OS.

Common, Common Sense, where’s your common sense? Can you explain the almost total lack of positive reviews (except your own) for using ZA and Vista????

By: John

John — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:37:44 +0000

@Common Sense

Well I thank you for your kind and encouraging words has it ever struck you that if a significant number of people disagree with you and your stance (opinion) of a product or service that they may be right and you wrong?

Or, perhaps, an expectation difference? Like a firewall should work with a minimum of interference, do exactly what it’s told to do and nothing more or less? Understand that it’s a firewall and that’s it?

Still, I’m glad you like ZA. Someone must.

As for your opinion of the rest of us that’s about as troubling whatever side of bed you got out of.

PS. Your editing needs some work. Your fluff filter needs replacing as 90% of your post is meaningless, holier than thou, fanboi fluff.

Do have a good day.

By: Common Sense

Common Sense — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:07:45 +0000

Some people are laughable. Hey. If ya don’t know what you are doing then get someone who knows to do it for you. I currently hold three licenses of ZA. 1 XP and 2 Vista. Been using ZA for years. Thats years with an s. Smoking fast internet and able to wade in on the trashest of websites. Never had any problems. Thats Period. Capital P-e-r-i-o-d and little (.). Before you bash a product take a little time to learn what you are doing wrong. Its a simple install and set-up. That is unless you don’t know what your doing.
You can put new paint on a crappy car and its still gonna be a piece of crap. The shiny paint did not make it a piece of crap. Don’t blame the painter. You either have not done any maintenance or your car was a piece of crap to begin with. Clean it out. Get the burger bags off the floor board. Ask your mechanic to tune it up. If when your done and your car is still a piece of crap then get a new one. (that was an analogy for the people thinking “What does a car have to do with a computer?”)
If this response offended anyone don’t look for an apology. You will not find it and I’m directing this to you. You just need to seek more knowledge. Go to Wally World and pick up a Fischer Price computer (sold in the toy section) and learn how to use it. Then try stepping up.
To the others who were not offended then I must have said what you were thinking. I hope to have enlightened at least one person. One person on this page to say (to be spoken dramatically with a light cresendo to a fade away at the end) “Maybe he is right. I don’t know how to set-up a simple but trustworthy protection package. I want to learn!.. I want to learn!”
If I can reach out and touch one person who has given a negative response to a superior product. My life would be complete in knowing I have helped someone break free of blaming someone else for their own shortcomings.
Thank you. Thank you for the time and the small opportunity to shine a tiny light on such a dark matter and may each and everyone of you have a wonderful day.

P.S. I edited this to take the fluff out. Everything left was only the bare necessities. Thank you again.

By: John

John — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:27:53 +0000

Just about everything people have talked about happening has happened to me with ZA and with every update it just gets worse.
Random dns errors with all browsers that cannot be duplicated at the router or on either of my Linux boxes, whitelist sites suddenly blacklisted, a site unreachable when it was perfectly reachable a moment before and so on.
It’s also come to the remarkable conclusion that Dreamweaver CS5 is a virus. Along with TheGIMP and OpenOffice.org 3.2.0
Remarkable how quickly this program has gone from one of the best available for Windows to the absolute worst firewall/security app I’ve ever seen, which says some since the title has been held for years by another piece of junk called Norton.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:14:56 +0000

I installed ZAPro evaluation version (9.1.507.000) on my Vista SP2 machine and it has not worked right since. I chatted with ZA help and they offered a new version, which I installed and it worked OK for about 12 hrs and then web pages hang on loading. Customer support doesn’t seem interested in getting to the root of the matter. The log shows ZAPro is blocking http from websites which I’m visiting (and it shouldn’t be), but obviously doesn’t block everything coming from the same site. It simply does not work. Also had another Vista computer with ZAPro (licensed) installed and it was always having connection problems, so I disabled Zone Alarm and confirmed that the TrueVector service was not running. But somehow it still blocked NetBIOS/ICMP (can’t respond to Tracert or Ping while everything else on the network was fine). Uninstalling from Add/Remove programs restored NetBIOS/ICMP/etc., but it may still have some intermittent connection problems. Like so many others, I used to swear by ZA, but they’ve lost my business forever after the headaches they’ve caused me. As of May 16, 2010, Zone Alarm STILL does not work with Vista and will corrupt your network function!!

By: flexo

flexo — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:35:45 +0000

ZoneAlarm personal was trouble free under XP, 2008 version worked with vista home but slowed boot and shutdown. version 9.1.7.2 frequently crippled the boot (loading of explorer.exe) with a blank screen, cursor and nothing else after login. Switched to Comodo and machine as good as it’s ever been (machine is HP pavillion dv9500). What are they doing, I used to love ZA?

By: Antivirus

Antivirus — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:52:14 +0000

I was a fan of Zone Alarm back in the early XP days when it was one of the best options available. I think the problem they have is they have bloated up their software so much and it is no longer a reliable, clean program people can turn to.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:12:43 +0000

Installed Zone Alarm Extreme v9.1.008… since then I’ve had slower processing of web pages, longer time in loading when you first start your system… Zone Alarm Force Field at least once a week will lock up and not allow me to power down my computer… until I get a notification from the computer saying that it’s preventing the shutdown and do i want to continue… before I was using Trend Micro which worked fine when I got the system (in March..new)… but some update in December basically screwed everything up and blocked me completely from the internet… so I uninstalled it and started using Zone Alarm… what a mistake that was!!! Zone Alarm was great on XP… sad it sux so badly on Vista!! Going to try some other options mentioned here… see how that goes!!