If you're a fan of ZoneAlarm or just hunting for a featured software firewall, you may be interested in a promotion Check Point Software is running today. The company is offering a free one-year license for its ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall 2010, which usually costs about $40. If this sounds a bit familiar, it's probably because the same promotion was available this time last year.

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Thanks man.

I quit using ZoneAlarm when I switched to Vista. But what the heck, free is free so I'll give it another shot and see what happens. Thanks for the heads up!

I too used to use this product like so many others years ago, until it nearly ruined not one but two computers. The golden days of Zone Alarm came and went. When you have to literally give your product away for free because few are purchasing it anymore then something is very wrong. If a product is truly worthwhile then it should sell on its own for a reasonable price. This is now the second year in a row they have to GIVE the darn thing away for FREE. I learned long ago you get what you pay for . . . I'll pass.

I got the free copy last year and installed it. I think I had it for a few hours before It annoyed me and I went back to my free edition of Comodo. I can't remember exactly why I didn't like it, but I am not even going to try it this year.

ZA did well at first when firewalls became a big issue many years ago (5-10 years?) when sites like grc.com started educating users on vulnerabilities to their system. ZA was top of the line then for a free firewall and I recommended it to everyone. Then they got greedy, I believe the product changed ownership a few years back. Their free service kind of deteriorated. The kept advertising to free users to try their complete package and had trouble from time to time with updates for free users. Then I found out the firewall was not as effective as it used to be. And i could not recommend it at all for vista users because it didn't work. Now, after searching countless reviews for best free firewalls, I use Online Armor free version. While not the best (you have to manually update it when new versions come out), it is a pretty darn paranoid firewall.

Like the other comments here, Zone Alarm in the early days was good but last years version hosed my Vista system. I'd rather use, the built in Windows FW, or Comodo or Online Armor.

The biggest issue I had with ZA was the resorces it took up and the last time I had run it it just was brutal with net surfing and downloading.

+1 for Online Armor.

ZA says that it is compatible with Win7 as of the Win7 release date. I installed the version I got for free yesterday on a Win7 ultimate machine, and it hosed the machine. Hopefully they will get their act together.

Rebel, explain further. What did you experience?

I'll stick with my router and windows 7 firewall.

Router/NAT pretty much blocks everything anyway, who doesnt have a router these days with NAT!?!?