ZONE LABS ZoneAlarm 5.5 review

ZoneAlarm is the darling of computer magazines. The free version, which has been compatible with Service Pack 2 since version 5.1, remains a strong contender against its pricy opponents. But can you really get decent protection for nothing?

Yes. ZoneAlarm picks up where the Windows firewall leaves off. Not only does it stop intruders connecting to your PC, it also controls which applications can access the internet. Windows' firewall can allow selected applications to receive connections, but it doesn't control which can initiate them. Application control is vital, as it stops Trojans leaking your private information to an attacker. Not all anti-virus programs can detect all Trojans, so this level of protection is important.

This is virtually the limit of the features in the free version of ZoneAlarm. It has settings to allow Windows file-sharing, and you can decide which programs can behave as internet servers, but if you want to set up standard firewall rules, you need to upgrade to ZoneAlarm Pro - which costs £27.

Due to the limited firewall settings, configuring our IIS server was easy. Too easy. You can't prevent access to the SMTP and FTP ports, as ZoneAlarm sees IIS as a single program rather than a group of services. However, combining ZoneAlarm's decent program control with Windows' own firewall rules works well. We reconfigured ZoneAlarm so that it wouldn't disable Windows' firewall, started the Windows firewall and added an Exception rule to allow incoming port 80 traffic.

With IIS exposed to the internet we unleashed our web attacks. ZoneAlarm failed to detect the suspicious web activity, confirming that this is not the firewall to use if you intend to allow any incoming traffic. As an addition to the basic Windows firewall, it should be considered as a minimum security measure.