ZoneAlarm Pro vs ZA Free

[FrankSG]

I know that there has been a lot of discussion about the different firewalls that are available. However, I would like some opinions just about the difference between ZoneAlarm Pro and the ZoneAlarm free version. I originally used the free version and liked it. Then some time ago I decided to buy the Pro version. Since I liked the free one, I figured that the Pro would be better. Well--I was wrong. At least for me it hasn't proven to be so. I used the Pro for well over a year and constantly had problem where pages would not load, I would loose connections, couldn't get connections, etc. I kept lowering my security settings to try to fix things. Sometimes it worked and other times it did not. So a couple of days ago, I uninstalled the Pro and installed the free version. It's working fine. If I go to Steve Gibson's web site and run a security check,all my ports are still shown as Stealth. I think I'm going to stick with the free version. I'm wondering if in the Pro version, they are trying to do too much. Maybe that's where the problem lies. I would like some other opinions on that and see what some others think about the Pro vs. the Free. Thanks.
~Frank~

[PrntRhd]

Frank,

I agree with your observations, I have been using ZA Free for over 2 years without problems. Pro may be OK, but I feel it is bloated with "features" that seem to suck memory and cause more than its share of conflicts.
:)

[PrntRhd]

There were also issues that came up when ZA 5 first was released, I found this recent info as two updates have come out since that controversy:

New and improved features in ZoneAlarm Pro version 5.1.011

Added Microsoft Security Center support
Added support for Microsoft SP2
Added anti-phishing protection for PayPal users
Fixed Internet Explorer browsing issues
Fixed IIS FTP Server issues
Fixed Visual Studio2002/2003 with IIS issues
Fixed AOL Browser issues
Fixed check for update issues (proxy configuration detection)
Fixed issues with checkdisk
Fixed more system stability issues
Routine maintenance items

New and improved features in ZoneAlarm Pro version 5.0.590.043

Fixed Norton AV e-mail scanning issue
Fixed issue with SSH timout
Fixed installation issue with McAfee Security Center
Fixed system stability issues

Free is the same engine as Pro, just less "features".

[Steve]

I haven't used ZA pro but I have been using ZA free for the past four years and have been quite happy. ZA does everything I want a firewall to do. It's easy to configure and it's free.

Some version have been better than others. ZA 4.5 was my favorite. It was the easiest for me to use...:rolleyes: but I really haven't had problems with any of them.