ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 offers a balance between best-of-breed security protection and ease of use, providing the home user with superior protection that's light on system resources.
Check Point ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 continues to innovate, this time dropping its long-time relationship with CA Antivirus and partnering instead with the award-winning Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6. Kaspersky, along with the award-winning MailFrontier Anti-Spam application, make ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 the only best-of-breed suite on the market and make it somewhat invincible against its competition. But security vendors have taken notice, in particular Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007, which adds some very cool new cutting-edge technology to its latest release, which we think may be a few years out of reach to be useful for most home users. None of the other Internet security suites we've reviewed can match the perfect balance of overall ease of use and security-product integration found within ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.
Set-up
We downloaded the 32MB installation file and installed ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 without a hitch. After a reboot, we were asked a series of questions to help us set up the application. The first question is in regards to the ZoneAlarm program control security setting, which controls the number of message alerts you'll see on your desktop. A Maximum setting flags everything until ZoneAlarm "learns" which security settings you prefer; an Auto-Learn setting starts the learning process earlier by temporarily lowering the security settings, resulting in fewer messages; and finally, a Minimum setting protects you against older, known alerts but no new threats, resulting in virtually no alerts. The default is Auto-Learn, and we left it at that setting.
Next, you're asked to participate in DefenseNet, ZoneAlarm's security threat centre where new alerts are recorded anonymously; you can opt out, if you prefer. After that, you'll be asked whether you have antivirus protection and, if you don't, whether you want to enable protection within ZoneAlarm. For this, we say choose ZoneAlarm's protection -- not only will you manage everything through the ZoneAlarm interface, but you'll receive state-of-the-art protection from Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Finally, the program will ask whether you want to scan your PC starting immediately. After these questions, you'll need to reboot once again.
Upon our second reboot, we were invited to view a three minute flash tutorial on how to use the suite. Trend Micro Internet Security 2007 also offers a tutorial, but Trend Micro's is a static Web page. ZoneAlarm walks the new user through with a lively video.
Should you decide to uninstall, ZoneAlarm includes an uninstall icon in the All Programs listing -- something McAfee and Norton do not. The uninstall process is smooth, first verifying that you want to do this, then disconnecting from the Zone Labs servers and removing the application. Upon reboot, we found absolutely no trace of ZoneAlarm -- not in the registry, not in the system folders. We cannot say the same for McAfee, Norton, or Trend Micro.
Interface
The PR material says there's a new interface in ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7, but all we saw was that the logo had changed, with the parent company, Check Point, much more prominent. Gone are the orange and red colours, replaced with a more sophisticated slate grey. ZoneAlarm's interface remains the high bar for design, at once communicating plenty of information without a lot of clutter or silly icons. Features are always visible along the left-hand navigation, and the right-hand window changes to displays additional tabs of associated information. For example, under Program Control, there's an overview tab of security settings, a tab for individual program access, and a tab for component access. We like the ease of customisation here, allowing us to allow, block, or ask with each program. Other firewalls make us jump through hoops or create complicated rule sets to tweak a given application.
Features
It's all here. ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7 includes all the security tools you need to keep not only your desktop PC secure, but also keep your personal identity safe while surfing online. What's new is the partnership with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6, but also there's a new autolearn system that helps users configure the firewall quicker, as well as a feature that configures security settings for applications that are already installed.
Unlike other suites we've reviewed, ZoneAlarm has fewer alerts for applications already running on our desktop. That's because Zone Labs maintains a rather large database of legitimate applications and compares the signature of what's on your system with those in its database. For the most part, ZoneAlarm only flagged unusual activity, which is what you want a good firewall to do. For example, ZoneAlarm notified us of a user who persistently attempted to scan our wireless laptop, then allowed us to block that user. Other firewalls we've reviewed only recorded these attempts in their logs.
It would appear that due to installing this program my internet connection speed has been dramatically slowed down. My upload and download speeds are a fraction of what they were. However, there may be other factors I am not aware of but it would something of a coincidence if Zone Alarm was not responsible. Other problems with V7 have been reported on the Internet