Zone Labs - ZoneAlarm Firewall

Advantages: It's Free.Stops hackers
Disadvantages: none that I can think of

Zone Alarm is a free personal firewall program that will protect your computer from malicious attacks by hackers. I first heard about this software from a magazine and decided to give it a try. The Zone Alarm website is easy to navigate. You can find out more detail about the program by clicking on one of the links at the top of the page,or just click the download link. The download takes between 15 - 30 mins. ,depending on your internet connection. ...
...you again. If Zone Alarm detects any unauthorised communication with your computer,it will block it and a firewall alert will pop up. It will say, for example,that the firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer from a particular IP address and say which port has been scanned. If you click on the more info button you will be taken to a zone alarm webpage,where it describes in detail what has happened. You are then told whether it was ... Read review

Advantages: Great internet protection, for free
Disadvantages: Nasty looking GUI, but you get used to it

As I'm a keen internet user, like probably most of you who are reading this op, I leave my PC internet connection wide open to unwanted visitors. By this I mean people who are (rather loosely termed) 'hackers', for want of a better word. A rough introduction to what these 'hackers' are looking for IP adresses ----------- When you connect to the internet, your PC is given what's known ...
...to your PC from your ISP, so that it can locate you, and you can locate other servers/machines over the internet, which likewise all have IP's. Your IP can be guessed by these 'hackers', as each internet provider (ISP) is given a range of these IP's to use when supplying you and my IP when you connect. Either the hackers out would guess your IP, or might use programs they've written to systematically work through a whole range of IPs. It's not hard ... Read review

Advantages: Makes you feel safe
Disadvantages: Makes you feel safe

...ZoneAlarm from a company called Zone Labs. They can be found at www.zonelabs.com. Don't be distracted by the website's clever attempts to get you to part with your credit card number. Stay doggedly committed to the acquisition of the "free" personal version and you will triumph in the end. Zonealarm is a very professionally put together piece of software that works beautifully straight out of the box. However, there are a few things to be aware of... ...
...just how often it happens, Zone Alarm will inform you of the event and will even give you a little advice on how serious the attack probably was (in order to get the full SP you have to upgrade to ZA professional - and that costs money). In any event ZA will usually catch any attempt to hack into your system (at least as far as I know!). There are a few downsides to ZA but I suspect that these will apply to any Windows based product, however, in ... Read review

Advantages: See text of opinion
Disadvantages: See text of opinion

...what eventually swayed me to Zone Alarm was the simplicity of the programme. Once you have downloaded the relatively small programme (2.87Mbs) and installed it on your computer, then it simply sits there in the background working away and providing you with your much needed protection, without you having to do another thing. When you first install it and connect to the Web, it will flash up a few messages asking you if you want to allow the likes ...
...any potentially dangerous incursions immediately. Zone Alarm creates a log of all sites that attempt to gain access to your computer when you are online, to let you know who exactly has been trying to access your information. Here’s a typical entry from the log, which I copied from my own personal log just this evening. “The firewall has blocked Internet access to img.mediaplex.com (63.209.29.152) (HTTP) from your computer [TCP Flags: ... Read review

Advantages: Too many to mention, a highly valuable piece of security software that is COMPLETELY FREE!!
Disadvantages: None

...be! Before I used Zone Alarm, I managed to actually get infected with a Trojan. I don’t know what it did, but I wasn’t happy when I found out, and had to update my Virus software and spend an evening extracting the offending files from my system. If I had Zonealarm, it’s likely that it wouldn’t have entered my PC in the first place. You may consider it un-necessary for you to have it as you only spend, say, an hour a day online. ...
...10 minutes after the last one. If that doesn’t convince you nothing will! Since using this software, I’ve been virus and Trojan free. And that’s with an always on connection for the last year. (It’s important however to mention that you should always use ZA in ADDITION to anti-virus software.) But what happens if somebody uses a more conventional way of delivering a malicious program to your machine? Well, ZA can’t ... Read review