ZoneAlarm Security Suite - any thoughts?

therecklessone

details

I'm currently using ZoneAlarm's free firewall, AVG Free and a combination of spybot/adaware. Has anyone used the Security Suite package, and is it any use?

Thanks in advance.

ActorSeeksJob

I'd say ZoneAlarm Security Suite would be decent. But you would probably be better off sticking with what you got. Security Suites are rarely THAT good to warrant removing all other programs.

Also why pay for something like that when you can get better programs that will do the individual jobs for free and far better.

Comodo or OutPost are both better firewalls than ZoneAlarm. Comodo in particular is considered to be the best firewall out there by far, it definitely is worth replacing ZoneAlarm with.

I think the ZoneAlarm anti-virus part of it's security suite uses the Kaspersky engine, which is a huge plus for sure. Kaspersky is the best anti-virus out there, so you would be getting the best anti-virus protection. However you could just get AOL Active Shield which also uses Kaspersky's engine, and is free.

The ZoneAlarm spyware scanner is pretty bad, Ad-Aware and Spybot have you covered in this area. Although to be honest those 2 programs arent that good these days. You would be better off getting AVG Anti-Spyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, SpywareBlaster, SpywareGuard. They are all considered to be the best for spyware.

Hope this helped a bit. In short, why pay for protection when you can get the best protection for free.

therecklessone

Huge help, thank you very much.

I've been offered the Security Suite for free (legal and all), but I'll check out some of the other stuff you've mentioned.

Black Swan

ActorSeeksJob wrote:

I think the ZoneAlarm anti-virus part of it's security suite uses the Kaspersky engine, which is a huge plus for sure. Kaspersky is the best anti-virus out there, so you would be getting the best anti-virus protection.

Yes, Kaspersky is used by ZoneAlarm, so why bother with ZoneAlarm? Aside from being an expensive security suite, Kaspersky version 6.0 has grand interface, the fastest updates, competitive heuristics, works well with XP-2 and Vista, is at the top of its game in IDing from signatures, does not suckup your capacity, and is super user friendly.

...SpywareBlaster,

A good passive malware blocker that works grand with XP-2, but has probs with Vista.

ethernet

I refuse to go near ZoneAlarm's free firewall again. The cheeky little application plonked a huge anti-spam toolbar in Outlook. I removed it and it kept reappearing. Now using Comodo instead and very happy with it.