Product Reviews

You'd be crazy to connect to the internet without a personal firewall and anti-virus software these days. Fortunately you don't have to spend a lot of money to secure your PC from hackers, viruses and worms. Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm personal firewall has been freely available for years and has proved itself time after time in tests. It now comes with added anti-virus features for a low price of £10.

The firewall is similar to that of ZoneAlarm Pro 5 (see 'What's New', Shopper September 2004). Both firewalls are sturdy enough to turn away undesirable internet traffic. The application control section, which dictates how much access programs have to the internet, now has its High setting enabled; to use this option, ZoneAlarm users normally have to upgrade to the Pro version. This means that you get anti-virus software and an enhanced firewall with stronger program controls than the free version for a tenner. You can now decide which programs can send email and also which program components, such as shared DLLs, are able to access the internet.

The anti-virus scanner monitors files arriving on your system and can also be automated with fairly basic scheduling options. When

ZoneAlarm's anti-virus software intercepts incoming and outgoing email. If a virus is detected, the program deletes the file and attaches a text file that describes the problem to the email message. Attachment files are renamed if they match the customisable list of file types. Executable files are locked even if no virus is detected, which is a great idea. Try to run such a file and you'll face two serious warnings. Persist and the file will run. If it's a program that tries to connect to the network ZoneAlarm will display another warning. Outgoing mail is monitored to prevent your system spreading viruses, should it be infected with an email worm.

It's easy to use the anti-virus software daily. You can scan by right-clicking files or folders, but the scanner won't look inside Zip files. ZoneAlarm downloads and installs virus updates automatically.

It's a great package. The anti-virus software isn't as effective and flexible as packages we've seen from F-Secure and Kaspersky, but its detection abilities are comparable to those of Symantec or McAfee's latest desktop scanners. Combining a personal firewall, program control and anti-virus is a good idea. We prefer ISS's BlackICE PC Protection firewall and intrusion detection system, and Kaspersky Lab's Anti-Virus Personal 5.0 is the best anti-virus program we've seen, but together they cost over £60 including VAT. If you want an easy-to-use, inexpensive security system, this is a great starting point.