The makers of ZoneAlarm are pioneers in the world of software firewalls and virus protection. In recent years, ZoneAlarm has been overshadowed by other free antivirus programs, such as Avast, Avira and AVG, but it is set to retake its place among the greats. ZoneAlarm is now owned by Check Point, and the developers there have decided to combine two of the best products in the ZoneAlarm brand: ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Firewall.

Features and Benefits

ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus Firewall has several powerful features to keep any computer system safe and secure from malicious hackers and malware vendors. The most useful feature is the real-time protection against viruses. This allows users to surf the Internet without having to worry about side-loading malware that can install on a system just by visiting an infected website. ZoneAlarm also has an automatic updater that activates every 24 hours to keep the virus definitions current.

ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus Firewall keeps a log of all the applications that access the Internet and assigns each a trust level, which permits users to detect potential problems quickly and easily. Also included in this robust package is anti-phishing protection and spyware detection. For gamers who need an antivirus program running but cannot have popup alerts interfering with games in progress, ZoneAlarm includes a game mode. When game mode is insufficient, another option exists to allow all programs temporary access through the firewall.

Performance

Although full scans using ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus Firewall can take some time, quick scans can be completed in only a few minutes. The speed has been greatly reduced in the new version when compared to older versions due to a fully redesigned scanning engine. The only problems ZoneAlarm has with performance are that it slows the system boot time and uses more system resources than much of the competition.