ZoneAlarm 5.5

User reviews

Review Date : Mon, 20 Jun 2005

Possibly the best known of the free firewalls, ZoneAlarm has plenty to be said for it. In addition to being free for personal use, it is easy to operate and very effective in action.

Possibly the best known of the free firewalls, ZoneAlarm has plenty to be said for it. In addition to being free for personal use, it is easy to operate and very effective in action. The download is only 6.3MB, and so should not take too long, even for dial-up users.

Installation is a breeze, with Wizards to hold your hand all the way and guide you through selecting the most popular settings or choosing a more customised defence system. Once installed you can rely on ZoneAlarm to work away in the background using your preferences – deny an application internet access and it remains denied. It can also operate in Stealth Mode, making your PC completely invisible to other computers on the internet.

The user interface is bold and easy to follow, and altering settings on the fly is simplicity itself. ZoneAlarm even includes an email checker, preventing Visual Basic script worms sneaking onto your machine.

Verdict

During the testing process, ZoneAlarm alerted us that we were under attack from the Hackerwatch test site. Overall it performs very well, keeps you continually informed with just the right level of user interaction, and is a very competent firewall application.

User Reviews