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ZoneAlarm Free

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ZoneAlarm Free User Reviews

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5 stars		13
4 stars		4
3 stars		3
2 stars		12
1 star		7
Based on 39 reviews

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Based on 39 user reviews
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Used to be a great firewall...but not anymore

by fwt1111683 Jun 24, 2012

Years ago, ZoneAlarm was a great product. But ever since Checkpoint bought Zone, ZoneAlarm has consistently gone downhill to the point where it can no longer compete with the competition. If you don't have a firewall, get Comodo. If you're using ZoneAlarm, dump it and get Comodo.

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Not user control friendly as it used to be.

by sonders991 Jun 18, 2012 (Read all my 5 reviews)

I liked Zonealarm when it first came out, but now this version likes to run your computer for you and has much less user control over what comes and goes and seems a bit bloated. Too complicated and has to be 'watched'. I also note it did not 100 pass the 'stealth' tests I usually test firewalls with. There are other ones that are more basic.

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Zone alarm is not for anyone ... period

by Merry07 Mar 13, 2012 (Read all my 4 reviews)

I had ts version of Zone Alarm Free, right where Id it. ings, the training, etc ... Then I got the updated version. Big and sorrowful mistake on my part. I thought, maybe it's just the free version, so Ii tested some of the Pro trials and it was all the same. The most important feature of any good Firewall program is the ability to halt ALL network traffic. Zone Alarm doesn't allow this anymore? I dropped Zone Alarm 12 years ago because they made updates mandatory in the free version. I heard from a trusted source that their policies had changed. And for a while it looked like they had. So once again, I have to boycott all Zone Alarm products from all the computers I work on. Do yourself a favor and try Personal Firewall instead.

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Not worth it

by wannabetechy May 16, 2011

This product supposedly appeals to techies but the big name products (which I don't think I'm supposed to mention) that came with a new computer I bought actually protect much better. It slows down your computer A LOT, and you think it's because it's doing such a thorough job protecting you, but it's not. I've found viruses and spyware that other products caught. Stay away from this one.

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Zonealarm today and yesterday

by drbooth Jun 27, 2010 (Read all my 2 reviews)

It seems ironic that one can recall using a software such as zone alarm and being satisfied to the point where they would purchase the upgrade. I have done that more than once. But then a change takes places regarding ownership and things start going downhill. This program falls under this category so I can no longer recommend it. Sorta reminds me of the things that happened with the great Norton Utilities software until it changed hands. I am not going to mention any names although I would have no guilt doing so. Would you think that "money" was a driving force?

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Not so good like in the past

by jtania73 Mar 28, 2010 (Read all my 8 reviews)

I've much appreciated Zone Alarm Free in the past. A good and lightweight firewall for any user. I think in the recent years the company who makes Zone Alarm didn't care so much of its free product ... There are some other free products that can be considered better than this. Finally, there is a limitation that I really don't like: it cannot be installed on server operating systems (when you try to install it on Win 2003 Server, it says that it cannot be installed on Win 2000 ... there is also a mistake in the message!).

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Getting too big, free version is all you need

by Mindach44 Feb 07, 2010 (Read all my 5 reviews)

I have used it for years, and would not surf the web without a QUALITY FIREWALL (NOT MICROSOFT'S). But now you have to watch the auto updates and auto installs. Each version seems to be a little worse than the last. It is also very hard to find the "Free" version on their website.

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Was a good program.

by Mike132 Nov 16, 2009 (Read all my 18 reviews)

I have used ZA both free and paid in the past.It did a great job back then. But today it needs to be seriously redone. Matousec's firewall tests have shown them to be serious lacking in security. The paid version only caught 72% of the tests. The unpaid version only stopped 11% of the tests. Making it insecure altogether. I no longer recommend or use either of them. There are far better firewalls to be had.

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Outstanding freeware!

by davemiller Jan 22, 2009 (Read all my 3 reviews)

I really like the free ZoneAlarm version. When you install BE SURE TO CHECK THE 'FREE' VERSION box. I've used it for years. It's a solid product that is friendly to both the basic user as well as the advanced. It has intuitive controls, as well as more advanced capability. It's been heavily used and reviewed, and has maintained a strong acceptance rating throughout. The installation, use, and uninstallation has been clean and uncomplicated. Some of the more 'retail' typical firewalls and 'security suites' are popular but can be resource hogs and can be problematic when uninstalling causing registry nightmares. I have not experienced any of that with the freeware version of ZoneAlarm. Also consider AVG or Avast as your free Anti-virus, and Spybot as your free spyware protection. Spybot does need manual updating but it is an outstanding tool.

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I will use others

by gimpguy Oct 01, 2008 (Read all my 1159 reviews)

ZA is "as basic as I can say" A resource hog, slow startup, becoming bloated, perhaps has been bloated for some time. Any version I try, "and I do give it a chance" seems to only get worse. I think it needs to quit being a showboat like Norton and go back to being the excellent firewall it was years ago. Then I may consider going back to it. I had a dsl issue when I was blocked completely, not resolved yet. It's security is good, I give it that but not enough to make me keep this on my pc. So until the next version.....

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Good ol' reliable zonealarm

by kol2008 Jan 06, 2008 (Read all my 14 reviews)

The free version is good. The Pro version is excellent. NEVER use McAfee AntiVirus (or certain other McAfee products) with ZoneAlarm as there are serious conflicts and McAfee will cause your computer to lockup as it boots. It is then very difficult, if not almost impossible, to then uninstall McAfee AntiVirus and you may be forced to reformat your hard disk and reinstall the OS.

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Best freebie firewall software

by ARD_UK Oct 06, 2007

ZoneAlarm is now upgraded to ZoneAlarm 7.0.408.0. I use Windows XP Home Edition with SP2. As long as the Windows Firewall is disabled you should use ZoneAlarm without any problem. Another thing to bear in mind is to carry on updating the Windows security files. At one stage with an earlier version of ZoneAlarm it did slow down the shutdown procedure to such a state that I had to close down the machine using the Task Manager. I have been downloading the Windows updates manually of late; one of these files may have cleared it. Theres always going to be a hacker getting round any sort of firewall eventually, particularly software versions but ZoneAlarm is the best freebie out there.

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Im a true ZA fan

by MyNameIsSylar Jul 31, 2007 (Read all my 2 reviews)

Some people say firewalls slow the connection down, specially when it comes to dial-up. It happens ZA doesn`t. I tested it several times with/without it and my speed remains the same. When I had to reformat my HD and used Internet without ZA installed, I had much more reports on Ad-aware, AVG and Spybot S$D. So I say Zone Alarm is pretty efficient, although the newer version warns you too much about outbound connection attempts. It doesn`t have any problem with P2P programs, except the crappy Shareaza. As long as they keep the good work, Ill will be using ZA when I move to broadband.

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Works, but...

by pantherman Jun 04, 2007 (Read all my 14 reviews)

For a free firewall it seems okay. But I did get hacked through it and am looking at alternatives.

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Needs a rollback

by jackfrost May 14, 2007 (Read all my 35 reviews)

I am very satisfied with the older product versions, and found them to be more than adequate and quite feature rich and designed with thoughtful simplicity. i cannot say this about any version above 5.5 however and strongly urge that one dig into their own personal archive and replace any new version with an older one or to find a suitable replacement elsewhere, like (rip) sygate, etc. this is an excellent example of flagrant abuse of the word "upgrade" when applied to a newer product revision, as this is nothing more than bloated buggy nonsense and can cripple some machines. it is *not* an upgrade. it is a downgrade. look elsewhere if you don't have the pockets for a hardware firewall, etc. avoid this.

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Zone alarm

by Dustin Apr 20, 2007

Just as a little background on me, I'm a system admin at an ISP and recently one of our customers asked for help with Zone Alarm free version. After downloading the free version to a test machine, it provided DECENT security over both a LAN and from the internet. However once I executed a port scan from a remote computer I was able to not only detect open/closed ports but Zone Alarm did nothing to stop my intrusion once I started. The overall security from a "script kitty" seems to be quite good, but from another point of view I was able to get past the security in under 10 minutes and gain full access to the machine that had Zone Alarm installed. Overall I would recommend this to the average user but for serious security nothing beats a BSD hardware firewall.

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You'll always end up going back to this one.

by mattcn81 Feb 08, 2007 (Read all my 2 reviews)

Experience shows when you use ZoneAlarm. You can tell the programmers know what they are doing. When you click remember it remembers. It doesn't ask you about the same program 40 times. The learning curve on this is about 30 minutes. Support is great, not that you'll need them often if at all. I don't understand the 4star rating.

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Nice firewall

by hydrowisp Jan 19, 2007 (Read all my 3 reviews)

Its an Excellent software base fire wall so if anyone is without a firewall should really try this

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Creates more problems than it solves

by Avenger Jan 02, 2007

Ever since I installed ZA-pro, my computer has been so unstable. Windows crashes abruptly. Web browser cookie handling is faulty (even after disabling it, I cannot open some sites). Disable ZA-pro and voila! all problems disappear. Frankly, I would rather use another firewall.

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Pass thru

by hrwasp Dec 12, 2006 (Read all my 48 reviews)

I use to use ZoneAlarm Free and later Pro versions back in the day. I have since moved on to a stronger firewall. One of my customers requested some information on this product so I re-evaled it. This latest version of ZA is a PASS! It causes some faulty errors when booting up IF the machine boots up. Uninstalled rolled back the settings, my test machines work fine again. I recommend looking elsewhere!

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Could never get it to work right

by marc57 Sep 04, 2006 (Read all my 2 reviews)

Tried this firewall several times and could never get it to work right. Between crashing my computer and freezing it on shutdown, it was a real mess. And to top everything it wouldn't uninstall right and even after removing everything from the computer and registry I finally had to format and re-install windows just to get my internet access back. this is NOT a stable piece of software.

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The best free firewall

by macic6 Aug 27, 2006 (Read all my 2 reviews)

ZoneAlarm is definitely the best free firewall program, it protected me from many hacker intrusion attempts, and it also quarantined suspicious e-mail attachments.

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Great fire wall

by Pondejim Aug 19, 2006 (Read all my 7 reviews)

It works well for me. It has blocked 29,935 intrusions, with 186 being high rated, since installing ZoneAlarm free about 3 months ago. Without it my PC was very vulnerable. Never having a fire wall for many years prior, I have been very lucky in having no major problems. Having this, in conjunction with Avast, AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, SpySweeper and Spyware Blaster, I feel nearly "bullet proof". Thanks for a the great up-front protection.

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As safe as you feel

by cameos Jul 03, 2006 (Read all my 3 reviews)

ZoneAlarm (Free version) is pretty much a piece of "Personal Firewall for Dummy" or "I feel safe even I know nothing about network" software, It's easy to use for beginners, and for most average users it does its job well. However, for advanced users, it's simply not as good as Sygate or Comodo. Of you really want to use ZoneAlarm, get the Pro version (not free).

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It's the best firewall!!!

by BJ_Ge0rgE Mar 02, 2006 (Read all my 4 reviews)

ZA is the best firewall because is easy to use it and blocks almost all hackers...I have tested a lot of firewalls and this is the best!

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Beware if you have multiple users on your pc

by MartinBell Feb 03, 2006

If your computer is configured for single use, then ZA v6 will work fine. (I suspect that is the case for those folks who've added ill-tempered posts criticizing the unfortunate people who have suffered.) However, there is a major flaw in Version Six. It blocks internet access on computers with multiple users. Uninstalling does not fix the problem. I am a computer scientist with two decades of experience using PCs and find it very disappointing the ZA appear to be in denial over this. However, check out the many sites on the web where this issue is discussed and you have the crumb of comfort of knowing that you are not alone. A once reliable, easy-to-use firewall can no longer be relied upon. :(

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Listen,all of you lol

by TechPC Dec 23, 2005

Ok, ZoneAlarm was a good firewall at one point. There are many flaws and problems that people will have with any platform, and OS across the world using this firewall. Those of you who slander other people's problems in their posts just is not right. Nobody is perfect as you people claim to be. I know much about computers, and am far from perfect. I too had problems with Zonealarm after it's last release. Thank you. Cheers and Beers

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You get what you pay for is still true...

by JSoftInc Nov 29, 2005 (Read all my 6 reviews)

Yahoo messenger and VNC viewer stopped working once I put this firewall on, and I gave these programs full rights. The antivirus did find one trojan, but what good is it if it could not repair or delete it? The same crap is still getting through even with this firewall and it is version 5.5. Thanks for the info about vsmon also and not upgrading to version 6. What good is this program if you have to do a bunch of work to get it to work "normal" and not slow your system down?? Forget [..], used it and uninstalled it and of course it did not totally uninstall. Guess you could buy [..] or some other firewall and then be totally pissed...

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I used to think this was the best.....

by TheDarkLord Nov 27, 2005 (Read all my 7 reviews)

This firewall is pretty good. It has a good interface and is simple. I think it's overhyped though. I don't think the security is the best. I passes most firewall tests, but the main drawback is the lack of program control. This means that a trojan can "hijack" other allowed programs without being detected, and as a result, security is compromised. It is not very configurable, though this does make it perfect for the beginner- you can get it up and running very easily. If you don't know anything about firewalls, this is the best program for you. I had some trouble configuring ZA to share network resources. To sum up- it's a good firewall. Simple, and easy to set up. Good for the rookie, but advanced users will want more configurability and features.

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Great firewall

by webexpressions Nov 23, 2005 (Read all my 35 reviews)

I have taken and tried several different firewall programs and have found that the Zone Alarm is the BEST by far for both features and PRICE..... Excellent program if you are looking for a great firewall program, give this one a shot. The price is right and it works great. The place to go if your looking for a program that does what it says , is at Snapfiles.com

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Problems with new version

by DrDeath{KLE} Nov 16, 2005

The old version worked great, but when i updated to the new version, it started making my pc freeze up and slowed my pc down to the point that i had to manually shut my pc down. when i restarted my pc, it froze up again, finally i was able to access my pc, and try to find out what was happening, and to find some type of remedy to this problem, but after a few pages of searching the net, it wouldn't allow pages to open. at first i thought it was a virus or some type of spyware/malware program in my pc, but it was not anything on my pc, but the za firewall itself. i removed it from my system, and have not had any problems since, also, i have installed a much better firewall, that doesn't cause any of these problems. sure it's a great firewall, but only the earlier version, the newer version is the worst thing that i ever had on my pc. if you can dl the old version, do it, but NEVER dl the updated version.

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Good firewall

by ploppe Nov 15, 2005

What`s wrong ,I have used Zonealarm Pro for years with no problems at all. Tried [..] and [..] before with big problems in every sense. Get tired and had used only ZoneAlarm Pro after the horrible experience with [..] and [..].

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Learn how to use a firewall correctly!!!

by safesite Oct 28, 2005

I jus HAD to register here stumbling upon these negative and silly reviews of Zone Alarm by some people here which I was looking for due to an update. I agree with "dirtnap" and his points of views. I simply was laughing at all of you saying how "bad" this firewall works!! I have used this firewall ever since I started protecting my Win 2000 desktop and laptop and I NEVER had any kind of problems with it as far as I can remember! Maybe you guys who run Windows XP (or Windows Xtremely Problematic!) should either get to know your computer better or start using Windows 2000 or NT based Windows versions and define Zone Alarm right. I run AVG Antivirus and Spybot SandD as well as Spywareblaster. Updating my Windows frequently and I got NO problems with that. Funny you guys do...! By the way, this firewall has protected me so far 2100 times!! And I have good security on my PCs I feel...!

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A wee bit of advice

by guardian_angel Oct 22, 2005

Just a bit of advice for all the reviews commenting on how Zone Alarm is a pain in the ass for broadband connections. The reason you loose your connection is that ZA blocks access to your web proxy address so NO DNS. To get around it, find out your DNS server addresses from your ISP and add them to your NIC properties as static addresses.

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Have used it for 2 years - no problems

by dirtnap Oct 07, 2005 (Read all my 19 reviews)

Who are these people who have problems with ZA!? It is THE premium free firewall on the 'net. Perhaps those having problems need to clean their registry of old applications which can conflict. I use ZA with antivirus and spyware software without problems. If you'll clean up your registry you should not have any problems with ZA. Also review ZA's "Program Control" list to disable apps no longer on your computer. If you aren't using ZA you are not getting the BEST protection.

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Watch out!!

by Nexar466 Oct 06, 2005 (Read all my 6 reviews)

When ZA starts messing up your PC, good luck getting it all out of your system. I used it 3 years ago, and wound up reformatting. ZA is a joke!

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Rubbish

by Ramsey Sep 22, 2005 (Read all my 5 reviews)

What a rubbish program i upgraded from version 5 to this. big mistake its hard to use, bloated and slows my pc. Avoid this product. Do yourself a favour and use ... which is a much superior product and will not use huge system resources like ZA

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Often internet loss

by Mike98 Aug 09, 2005 (Read all my 10 reviews)

Easy to uninstall via the control panel. I think, that the fact, that ZoneAlarm has earned the Designed for Microsoft Windows XP Logo is fairly overrated. This firewall blocks admittance to too many websites and is therefore complete useless for the normal use of the internet.

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You can do way better!

by Sindonich Jun 28, 2005

Zonealarm use to be a very tight program small clean and simple but now it's a godzilla monster it takes up too much system resources zonealarm makes a terrible mess in the registry and it's buggy. Securitywise many Hackers just laugh at this firewall (Ok to be fair they actually laugh at other windows firewalls especially microsoft's ICF included in Win XP because it sucks) If you really want to stay safe you can do better buy a solid hardware firewall that offers serious protection for your data even a decent NAT router at $150 is worth it.

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