Labs

Last year, we complained that ZoneAlarm had fallen behind the times by not including a dedicated spyware scanner in its flagship suite. That failing was soon corrected. Zone Labs has filled the gap with kernel-level spyware prevention that integrates fully with the anti-virus module. Both components are sourced from Computer Associates, Zone Labs' parent company, and present themselves as a single consolidated interface controlling the detection and removal of viruses, spyware and malware.

Ease of use has always been a key ZoneAlarm strength and, while you can tweak and configure every component easily, there's little point when it comes to anti-spyware, as the default automatic treatment setting works right out of the box. In our tests, ZoneAlarm was the only product that gave the standalone spyware benchmarks a run for their money and the only security suite to pass. The detection rate of 91 per cent is just 1 per cent shy of Spyware Doctor, removal rates 4 per cent short on 84 per cent, but blocking beats it (although not Trend Micro PC-cillin) with 70 per cent.

There's nothing too shabby about updates for anti-virus and anti-spyware either; both are handled automatically, in the background, with negligible impact on system resources. If spyware is detected, ZoneAlarm provides detailed information and advice regarding treatment that matches any standalone program.

Not much is new with the anti-virus component beyond the spyware integration, but there wasn't much wrong with the excellent CA module before. We were pleased to see the addition of a pause/continue function for the scanner, though, enabling you to devote all those processor cycles to something else should you so require, and a quarantine management area for infected files you don't want to, or more likely can't, clean. ZoneAlarm flew through our anti-virus tests as competently as its spyware scanner.

Rootkit exploits are detected by ZoneAlarm's new Triple Defence Firewall. Effectively, you get the proven and mature ZoneAlarm stateful stealth firewall to guard the network perimeter; a second firewall wraps itself around every software app to protect good programs from bad; and the third layer is the OS Firewall to protect

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the OS, Registry and file system from attack. Thanks to the SmartDefence Advisor that Zone Labs introduced last year, the firewall needs no tweaking, with the advisor passing default policy from the SmartDefence team at Zone Labs directly to the user. The SmartDefence service also provides real-time updates and new attack-protection capabilities, and is pretty much the brains behind most ZoneAlarm services (from the DefenceNet community input for spyware attacks to the advisor for deploying policy automatically).

Another new feature that works well is the automatic kill control. This gives the SmartDefence Advisor the ability to disable programs attempting dangerous or damaging activity without the need for user input. Zone Labs' database of more than 10,000 Internet-facing apps means you get minimal 'generic host process' alerts to confuse you and fewer false alarms requiring intervention to annoy you.

The previous version of ZoneAlarm didn't cope well with spam, letting too much slip through the filter and not reaching the 90 per cent success rate to pass our test. Things have improved this year, though, with a detection rate of 93 per cent and only 0.6 per cent false positives. The MailFrontier-driven anti-spam component is, like all others, fully integrated into ZoneAlarm, with all configuration options available from the main management console. It also integrates superbly with Outlook, providing a toolbar with buttons to mark as junk or otherwise, and also options to quickly black list or white list the sender or the sender's domain. Detailed statistical reporting of your spam history is available directly from within Outlook.

The anti-phishing function identifies all the usual eBay/PayPal/banking scams and moves them to a fraud folder. Used in conjunction with the existing ID lock (which alerts the user whenever personal information is about to leave the computer) and the host file lock that prevents hackers from modifying the local host files, ID theft protection is superbly covered.

Elsewhere, Zone Labs hasn't fiddled too much. The automatic network detection has been tweaked for Wi-Fi and will now identify unsecured wireless networks and automatically set the appropriate security levels to protect the computer. Instant Messaging protection, parental-control features, ad blocking, cache cleaning, mobile-code control and email-attachment quarantining remain as impressive as ever.

What prevents ZoneAlarm from getting a clean slate in our testing is its inability to set web-filtering configurations on a per-account basis. This oversight seriously restricts the usefulness of the otherwise well thought-out parental controls. But this is the only blip in an otherwise superb product, with its performance in all the other tests enough to retain its A-List status.