ZoneAlarm's Security Suite is one of
the best security suites we've seen. Its interface is far easier to use
and understand than the competition's, and its feature set, which
includes a personal information vault and IM message encryption, puts
the comparably priced
Norton Internet Security 2004
and
McAfee Internet Security 6.0
to shame. While there are still some areas (namely spam filtering) that
we'd like to see ZoneAlarm beef up in later versions, overall, ZoneAlarm
Security Suite is the suite to beat for all-around Internet privacy and
security, whether you use your PC from home or take the corporate laptop
out on the road.
Installation and interface
ZoneAlarm Security Suite is available as a boxed CD or as
an 11MB download. When you install, the program asks for your Internet
connection method (dial-up, DSL, cable, and so on), the type of computer you
use (single user, family, laptop, workstation), whether you're part of a
network and already use antivirus software. This information provides
ZoneAlarm Security Suite with an initial configuration that you can tweak
later if necessary.
After rebooting your PC, ZoneAlarm Security Suite
launches its main interface, the Control Center, which is clean and concise,
with configuration options intuitively divided under 10 tabs (Overview,
Firewall, Program Control, Antivirus, E-mail Protection, Privacy, ID Lock,
IM Security, Web Filtering, and Alerts & Logs). For example, you can
customize the ad-blocking feature to permit banner ads while removing
animated and pop-up ads.
The first time a program tries to access the Web,
ZoneAlarm lets you know, offers advice, and leaves the decision up
to you.
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Overall, ZoneAlarm
Security Suite's configuration is as simple or complex as you prefer.
For instance, set the suite's Internet cookie management to off, turn
it on high (blocking all cookies), or leave it at medium to permit
session-only cookies. If you want more detailed control, however, you
can accept each tracking cookie on your computer for whatever length
of time you like. While Norton and McAfee also allow for these
options, you'll have to dig several layers down to find them.
Considering the suite's
functionality, it requires relatively little of your memory resources:
roughly 9MB of RAM. In informal tests, the firewall produced almost no
degradation in speed while accessing the Web. Norton and McAfee
introduce a little more system drag. The only inconvenience occurred
shortly after installation, when ZoneAlarm asked us to allow or deny
each of our Internet browsers and various other programs to interact
with the Web. Once set up, however, the suite's firewall is
transparent. |
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