One More Irritation Gone

[Gary A]

I have been using BitDefender anti virus for a year now along with Zone Alarm Pro. The BitDefender has been flawless but the Zone Alarm Pro has deteriorated.

My subscription to BitDefender was about to expire so I was looking for another subscription or maybe another highly rated program. I found out that BitDefender has a suite available. It has a firewall and anti spy ware built in. I was happy with the original anti virus so I bought the suite. It cost about $55 for two years with updates and can be used on two machines. It's called BitDefender Antivirus Plus V10.

So far, so good. That is the only security program I have running.

[alexth]

I found BitDefender to be very annoying, not sure how effective, it might be good, but right now, even if I had a few problems, I'm sticking with ZoneAlarm.

[cdnvic]

BitDefender is quite good, and very light on resources.

[DirkGently]

In what way did Zonealarm fail? I have been using it for 3 years with no real problems. I'm not saying it's the best, but it is very good.

Let's not forget the price is right. Free.

[Kyosuken]

Zone alarm pro is not the same beast as zone alarm free (unless they changed some bits in the later) you've got full controle (well ZA Pro got it) over the network infrastructure, it filters everything. That's good as long as you don't have any changes to the network, when you add a couple of computers the pain in the *ss starts.

What i really hate with ZA is that it usually "forgets" (the AI of ZA should be Thai...) the dynamic settings, it really gets on my nerve when i have to check 4 times a day that i allow IExplore, or Firefox (or whatever applications) to be permanently able to connect to Internet (and yes these apps are in the "whitelist" and yes they are properly configured). Your mileage may varry but all flavours of ZA i tested so far gave me the same headaches over and over so i decided not to use this piece of sh*t ever .

[cdnvic]

I have a ZA Pro licence but I opted to use the free version when I was still running Win2000. The pro was bulky and hogged far too many resources, as well as duplicating what the router was doing anyways.

[Gary A]

My subscription to Zone Alarm Pro still has 276 days but I uninstalled it. The free version is better as far as I am concerned but I don't use that either. The BitDefender firewall doesn't ask near as many questions. Is it as good? I have no idea but the package uses VERY little resources and with the task bar hidden, I wouldn't even know it is running. I lied in my previous post. I forgot that I still use Spy Sweeper. That subscription is good for another year and a half.

With this combination and the browser SeaMonkey, I don't expect to have any problems.

I think Zone Alarm got worse after it sold out. The new owners are very concerned with marketing and selling more junk.

[DirkGently]

kyosukens reply read like this to me "ndaddja jd nvadsvahsd hgjh hhbhkb ljiiqjsjgsg 41 //42 hchsbcbcnlz zone alarm ,mqqqwwwwkw 234567890"

All I know is I rarely get spyware or anything nasty.

It asks me to confirm a few things from time to time, but not often enough to bother me.

Is there a better free version out there that works well with AVG, I trust that is also not crap now?

[Simmo]

Haven't need a software firewall since XP's one became good enough around Service Pack 2.

Haven't needed a spyware scanner since Windows Defender became good enough.

My antivirus / trojan scanner is "netscan -a" at a dos prompt.

[Kyosuken]

Sorry if my talking sounds like babbling to you DirkGently, it seems thought that other people are understanding. In computer science people may try to use analogy to help it easier to understand some people does it better than others.

[cdnvic]

Is there a better free version out there that works well with AVG, I trust that is also not crap now?

AVG has long had one of the poorer detection rates for viruses. They bought an excellent antispyware company so their antispyware is fine but I keep having to fix computers that AVG has let get infected.

If you want free antivirus go with Antivir, it's detection is top notch. Avast is also good. Not quite as good for detection rates as Antivir but it's mail scanner is one of the best. If you are buying an AV I recommend nod32.

[MikeWill]

Re: Firewall

I am quite happy with the COMODO. And it is FREE.

[DirkGently]

I didn't know that AVG was not up to scratch. Why is it so well recommended?

[Gary A]

Do some surfing and look for anti virus reviews. I think you will soon see that even for free it is not rated very high. I think you'll see words like dismal. AVG is the only program that ever allowed my computer to be infected. I like free BUT I now pay for all my programs.

[cdnvic]

I didn't know that AVG was not up to scratch. Why is it so well recommended?

Same reason that hotmail is so popular. It's free, and most people don't think beyond that. Actual lab tests show AVG's not that good. Look back at the last few months of this forum and most of the people who had nasty virus infections were using AVG. Many who switched from AVG to a better AV found nests of infections that had been there all along that weren't being detected.

Up to you, but loyalty to a second rate product that you pay anything for isn't worth your data.