Software : ZoneAlarm Pro 2008 (3 PC)

Rating: - So secure you can't use your own computer
On the plus side, Zone Alarm seems to have done a successful job of defending my three computers against malware for more than a year. However, it has two considerable downsides. After any update to any almost any program on the computer, Zone Alarm will sets off an alarms when you use them. For example, a minor update to Internet Explorer will set off an alarm that asks you whether you want to let the updated version access the internet. Currently, there are updates for Windows XP and Vista every few days, as well as less frequent updates for other programs. This is tiresome but potentially dangerous too, as you become so used to cancelling the alarms you could easliy cancel an alarm for something that was a real threat.

But the second and for me more serious problem is that every so often (and always it seems at a time when I need to use the computer urgently) Zone Alarm decides to do a system scan. There's no notification of this, but it is obvious because the system slows down very significantly. On my laptop, nothing else can be done on the system for anything up to 30 minutes. Short of turning off Zone Alarm altogether, I have found no way of halting Zone Alarm's scan - even task manager from an administrator account can't halt the scanning process.

In summary, I will be looking at other options when my current subscription is up, and will need a lot of convincing to use Zone Alarm again.

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Rating: - DO NOT USE IF CHILDREN HAVE ACCESS TO COMPUTER
This review was written for the 2007 version but in order to save you all grief i thought i should put it under this year's version too. i'm sure this is an efficient programme for efficient people BUT its constant dialogue with the user (always asking permission for everything) places the computer at risk when someone other than an intelligent competent being responds to all the flags and warnings. My son is NOT intelligent nor competent and managed to ignore the warnings and turn off the virus protection which has meant the computer has now become infected and can no longer access the internet. Thanks alot guys, but slow or not i wish i had stuck with Norton. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.