New Product review

ZoneAlarm’s superb firewall is a fixture on many PCs because of its uncanny ability to guard a system without pestering the user with alarms permissions. The ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite includes network, program, and operating system firewalls. These shield the Windows OS kernel and Registry, integrate into the network, and protect against invaders of specific applications.

The rest of the suite is the usual collection of anti-spyware/virus tools, privacy controls, anti-spam, and anti-phishing utilities. In fact, ZoneAlarm now has pretty much what McAfee and Norton have, only it wraps it all into a more understandable package that makes it less intrusive and more accessible than other suites.

ZoneAlarm loves to teach. At installation it politely asks which settings to activate and even includes a tutorial. ZoneAlarm does not try to lump all the suite operations into just a few buckets, but has separate control tabs for firewall, e-mail, virus/spy protection, personal ID, parental controls, etc. This organization makes it easier to locate the operation you want to tweak, from attachment scanning to ad-blocking.

Unlike some of the big-name competition, every operation in this console is clearly labeled and explained in plain English when you click on it. Pressing the contextual Help button provides great detail about the current operation.

ZoneAlarm is fairly intrusive, with more frequent firewall alerts than current versions of McAfee or Norton. Nevertheless, the upside is smoother integration with Outlook and a generally lower performance hit than the competition. ZoneAlarm seemed to add little extra time to our boot sequence, and its background scanning of e-mail and document loading was negligible. The anti-spam program weaves easily into Outlook and adds a self-explanatory toolbar for ID-ing spam.

One of the most polite and instructive suites we have seen, ZoneAlarm is clear and effective. It is the all-in-one solution we recommend for all notebook owners.