ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0 Review Just Say No To Hackers, Ads, and Cookies Eric Grevstad
Fri 4/19/02 -- Why is Zone Labs like a gangster, and why are you like a neighborhood storekeeper? Because Zone wants you to pay for protection.
The difference is that it's not extortion from crooks, but protection against crooks -- the company's famous ZoneAlarm firewall, one of the Web's best defenses against hackers, snoops, and Trojan horses, especially for PCs with always-on cable or DSL connections. And the company's main challenge in getting you to pay is that it offers a version of ZoneAlarm 2.6 that's free for personal use.
But ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0 works hard for your $50. While the previous ZoneAlarm Pro differed from the free firewall only in detail (better e-mail and networking support, password protection for changes to security settings), the new release combines a stronger firewall with extra privacy and convenience -- tools putting you in control of the cookies (cached text files) that Web sites use to track your identity and surfing history, and blocking unwanted banner ads and annoying pop-up and pop-under ads that clog your browser and waste your bandwidth.
The update also wraps ZoneAlarm's industrial-strength security in an impressively simple, friendly new interface, replacing the old version's somewhat forbidding (not to mention ugly) appearance with some of the best-designed dialogs and help screens we've seen in ages. It's not quite the unchallenged king of online security -- Symantec's $70 Norton Internet Security bundle offers comparable firewall, ad, and cookie control plus virus protection that Zone's product lacks, and is often rebated to match the latter's price. But ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0 should be one of your first choices as one of the first programs installed on your PC.
No Reboot Required
ZoneAlarm Pro starts working as soon as you've downloaded and launched the 2.4MB installation program, with a smartly balanced set of defaults and a number of tutorial screens that explain program concepts in nontechnical terms.
Adding itself to your Windows Startup group, ZoneAlarm Pro normally runs as an icon in the system tray, popping up an alert when it wants your attention. Double-click, and the program appears to let you check status and change settings. In addition to choosing among several color schemes, including older versions' clashing orange and gray, you can view said versions' compact dashboard, showing which programs are accessing the Net and offering an Internet access lock for when you leave your desk and an emergency traffic-cutoff button if a hacker or rogue program is wreaking havoc right now --
-- but you'll probably want to expand ZoneAlarm Pro to its new, much more helpful display panel, with easily navigated tabs for functions and settings and click-to-hide explanatory text that makes it hard to get lost. If you do get lost, most programs these days could learn from ZoneAlarm Pro's exemplary help screens, which combine simple explanations, even simpler tutorials and definitions for those who need them, and numbered "you are here" screen illustrations that steer you to the help you seek.
