ZoneAlarm Plus Firewall Fits Between Free Utility and Fancy Suite Component-Level Control Thwarts Snoops, Hackers, and Application Hijackers Eric Grevstad
Mon 7/1/02 -- Legions of cable and DSL modem owners use Zone Labs' free-for-personal-use ZoneAlarm software firewall to thumb their noses at broadband snoops and hackers. Recently, the company added (and WinPlanet reviewed) a $50 ZoneAlarm Pro version that combines industrial-strength firewall protection with banner and pop-up ad blocking and cookie control.
Now the company has split the difference with ZoneAlarm Plus 3.1 ($40), a utility for users who prefer to put together their own online-protection suites with other ad or cookie controllers, but want a fiercer firewall than the free version provides.
ZoneAlarm Plus has all of its deluxe brother's security features, including "hardened" component control that not only fingerprints trusted applications (such as your Web browser and e-mail client) but their individual components and DLLs so malicious programs can't masquerade as approved applications. Streamlined installation and automatic network detection, including support for 802.11b wireless LANs, make setup simple, while Zone Labs' AlertAdvisor service provides access to an extensive knowledge base of security threats and graphically maps the location of any PC attempting to probe the ZoneAlarm Plus system (without letting slip any identifying information about the latter).
Zone Labs also says that an update to the free version of ZoneAlarm, with an improved interface and stronger security (though still short of the Plus and Pro editions), will be available for download later this month.
