Doesn't Zone Alarm Pro Like Wal-Mart?

What's going on? Zone Alarm is bloatware and it sucks. ;-)

That sounds like I'm being an ass but I'm not. This is precisely the type of thing that makes me never allow Zone Alarm to touch a computer I use.

I used to use Zone Alarm but found that it caused many problems and since it never prevented a single problem (all the crap it pretends to protect from with all teh alerts is usually normal internet activity) I consider it not worth the incredibly huge downside.

Craven- I am getting to the point where I have to renew, so maybe now is a good time to change. Are their any other programs that you would suggest? Also, my pro version stops pop up ads. Any suggestions for any good programs for that?

Well, the really paranoid types will disagree but I swear by the XP firewall. It works perfectly for threats from outside your computer. The only knock on it is that once you have a trojan horse INSIDE it does not protect against outbound exchanges as well as other firewalls.

Frankly you will only see a difference when you have a trojan horse on your computer. And if you have a trojan horse on your computer the problem is you (for letting it get there) and not the software.

The XP firewall does what a firewall should do without all teh bloatware and crap that firewalls add to give themselves an "edge".

Popup stoppers and ad blockers are not inherent to a firewall. ZoneAlarm's popup stopper is not a very good one anyway.

I can recommend 20 free popup stoppers (the best being the one on Google's toolbar) and many other ways to block ads etc for free.

To put it real simply every single thing that Zone Alarm does can be done for free by another application and in some cases they do a much better job.

I'd go with an XP firewall, Google Toolbar popup blocker and if you want to block ads I recommend either doing it yourself through the hosts file or using a separate program for it.

I don't have XP yet-- I am working on it. :wink:

P.S. A couple of days ago, I received a message frome Zone Alarm Pro that an update was available. When I checked the new features, there was a cryptic sentence about the new version correcting a system problem that has affected some customers. Anyhow, since I downloaded the update, I have gotten no VSMON errors!

P.S. I just (with trembling fingers ) attempted to access the Wal-Mart site. It worked!

Zone Alarm
I started using Zone Alarm at the suggestion of www.grc.com about 4 years ago. I upgraded to ZA Pro about 2 years ago, for the popup blocker, and then started to get a variety of problems, like the VSMON problem. Check the Internet experiences (horror stories) at grc.com, and why he recommends a GOOD firewall. He also will let you test your firewall. I'll have to check out the most recent update to ZA to see if it's worth getting rid of the intermittent problems. Take care.