For this week’s Freeware Frenzy, I will be examining ZoneAlarm Firewall version 6.1.737. I recently had some issues with spyware which proved to me that no matter how many programs you have to get rid of it, preventing it is step one. Since Windows Firewall clearly failed me, I chose to look elsewhere for protection. So I found Zone Labs. They offer numerous programs for internet security, but it was their free firewall that caught my eye. So I jumped on it.
After installing, you complete a survey, and choose if you want IE to have immediate access to the internet. Then you’re up and running. The first thing you will notice about ZoneAlarm is that you cannot open the programs that need the internet at first. ZA will alert you and say that a particular program is trying to access the internet. You simply select “Remember this setting” and “Allow”. Once I got my frequently used programs set up, such as AIM, Winamp and IRC, I was all set. I can rest easy knowing that the programs I want to access the net are allowed and anything else can’t without my permission.
The tray icon is your passport to ZA. When you are actively using the net connection, the ZA icon becomes two columns of green and red. Red monitors outbound traffic and green shows inbound. My green column is bright nearly always since I use Internet Radio. Right clicking opens the ZoneAlarm Control Center.
Along the left edge, you’ll see ZoneAlarm’s different areas of protection. The most important of these are your Firewall and Program Control Pages. The Firewall Main Tab gives you High, Medium and Low options for security in the “Internet Zone” and the “Trusted Zone”. I followed the program’s recommendations and chose High for the Internet Zone, meaning my computer is hidden from the net entirely. For the trusted zone, I went with medium, meaning that other computers can see my system and share resources. The Trusted Zone is basically your network. As such, I had to add my other computers manually, so that I could share files and printers.
Program Control shows all the programs that have asked for Internet Access and what permissions you have given them. ZoneAlarm divides permissions between Access and Server, and within each; Trusted and Internet. Access means the program can actively retrieve information from the internet or the Network. Server means the program can listen for contact over the internet or the network. You can customize all four types of access for all programs by Allowing, Denying or setting them to Ask.
Zone Alarm also has Email Protection and Anti-Virus Monitoring. However, remember that this is only a free firewall, so E-mail protection only stops .vbs files from opening, and Anti-Virus monitoring merely tells you when your anti-virus programs are out of date. So you’ll need to look elsewhere for these protections. Finally, ZoneAlarm has a log file of all the programs that use the internet and what they have or have not been allowed to do.
One final feature of ZoneAlarm is SmartDefense Advisor. This is another type of alert that explains what happened and what ZoneAlarm did. You can see in the screenshot that ZoneAlarm prevented a possible security breach when my computer attempted to access a port on a DNS server. I very much appreciate the helpful information that ZoneAlarm provides when this happens.
So there you have it. ZoneAlarm personal firewall is a great freeware program. It offers PC level firewall protection, and some excellent information. While it can take some time to setup all of your programs and network computers, once you’re finished, ZA is a nearly silent protector. I encourage anyone who doesn’t have a software firewall already to check into one. Windows Firewall isn’t nearly as useful. www.zonelabs.com
