I am a user of Zonealarm Pro and prefer it over many of the other 
software firewalls. The option to display incoming alerts can be 
turned off, which I do on all our PCs. The alerts on newly installed 
programs or when it is "learning" about your programs that access 
the Internet can be difficult to decode at times, but I always put the 
PC through the learning curve before the user gets it back. And it
is a picnic compared to Norton's firewall. I installed that on one
system just one time. Never again. Talk about having to micro
manage your Internet traffic!

I like how Zonealarm Pro manages incoming and outgoing traffic. Even 
the new SP2 ICF firewall from M$, which is supposed to be such an 
improvement, still does not monitor outgoing traffic to the Internet. 
I believe that was the main problem with Blackice is that it also does 
not monitor outgoing traffic, only incoming. Perhaps that has changed 
since the last time I read about it.

The main con I have with Zonealarm is that the program alerts that 
come up are incomprehensible to the users. Whichever is the wrong 
answer is the one the user will normally pick. Some will not check the
box to make the choice permanent and then complain that this program
alert comes up all the time. It would help if the users would read the
information they are given, but many don't bother, unfortunately.
They could improve their product a lot by providing better information 
on processes that want access to the Internet, along the lines of 
Troubleshooter by AnswersThatWork.com

Tom Hula
Victor S. Barnes Company

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