2005.09.15
ZoneAlarm 6 Internet Security Suite - Not Ready for Prime Time [General] -
chris - chris@chrisrussell.net @ 879 (16:09:29 EDT)
The 15-day demo of ZoneAlarm 6 Internet Security Suite lasted just six hours on my XP Pro SP2 workstation before it became such a nuisance I had to remove it (or at least try).
In my opinion, this product has a long way to go before it's ready for prime time. The interface is not that great - you have to really go poking around to figure out what it thinks it should be doing. The product does purport to do a lot, so organizing the interface isn't simple. But it could be better.
No complains particularly about the speed of scanning or the options for customizing the scan.
The firewall subsystem is confusing, but seems to work okay.
The real-time monitoring system is a real pain however. At one point, ZoneAlarm popped open a security warning dialog from the system tray alerting me to the fact that one of it's constituent components was engaged in suspicious activity: "attempting to open the Explorer.exe process". Unfortunately, there was no way to allow or deny the action as ZoneAlarm seems to deadlock in this situation. Shortly thereafter, basically everything on the box stopped responding and I had to cycle the power. That was the last straw. Or almost. Removing the product via Control Panel | Add Remove Programs didn't go too well either. When I clicked "Remove" it popped open a dialog stating "Determining if you're authorized to uninstall." This dialog just sat there for 90-seconds and then disappeared from the screen leaving the Add Remove Programs dialog box locked up and unable to process mouse and keyboard events. Then the Install Shield kicked in and the product supposedly removed itself. However, when it finished Add Remove Programs was still unresponsive as was the task bar, and all the icons in my system tray were gone. Another power cycle later and I'll never use a ZoneLabs product again.
I really hate the fact that all my posts lately have been rants about this and that. But what the hell man... I swear the more people want for their software the more likely it is to be completely untested. Or at least that's how things seem lately.
In my opinion, this product has a long way to go before it's ready for prime time. The interface is not that great - you have to really go poking around to figure out what it thinks it should be doing. The product does purport to do a lot, so organizing the interface isn't simple. But it could be better.
No complains particularly about the speed of scanning or the options for customizing the scan.
The firewall subsystem is confusing, but seems to work okay.
The real-time monitoring system is a real pain however. At one point, ZoneAlarm popped open a security warning dialog from the system tray alerting me to the fact that one of it's constituent components was engaged in suspicious activity: "attempting to open the Explorer.exe process". Unfortunately, there was no way to allow or deny the action as ZoneAlarm seems to deadlock in this situation. Shortly thereafter, basically everything on the box stopped responding and I had to cycle the power. That was the last straw. Or almost. Removing the product via Control Panel | Add Remove Programs didn't go too well either. When I clicked "Remove" it popped open a dialog stating "Determining if you're authorized to uninstall." This dialog just sat there for 90-seconds and then disappeared from the screen leaving the Add Remove Programs dialog box locked up and unable to process mouse and keyboard events. Then the Install Shield kicked in and the product supposedly removed itself. However, when it finished Add Remove Programs was still unresponsive as was the task bar, and all the icons in my system tray were gone. Another power cycle later and I'll never use a ZoneLabs product again.
I really hate the fact that all my posts lately have been rants about this and that. But what the hell man... I swear the more people want for their software the more likely it is to be completely untested. Or at least that's how things seem lately.
