I have the ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite and Windows XP. After installing a new Windows update (KB951748) yesterday, I suddenly found myself unable to set ZA to the highest setting ("stealth mode") and connect online. I could browse the Internet if I used the "medium mode" (which means I'm protected but visible), but I wanted to find out what was wrong.

So after getting angry at ZA, trying a few different settings within the program itself and rebooting a couple of times, I decided to look at ZA's website to see if any help could be offered there. Fortunately, I wasn't the only person having these issues and there was already a workaround in the form of an update to ZoneAlarm.

The update for ALL VERSIONS of ZoneAlarm is here which includes: ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, ZoneAlarm Pro, ZoneAlarm Antivirus, ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware, and ZoneAlarm Basic Firewall.

If you're interested in trying out ZA, you might want to know that only ZoneAlarm Basic Firewall is completely free, whereas the others require you to purchase them (although they do have trial versions). Unless you want an all-in-one suite, the basic firewall is perfectly fine, since you can get free virus scanners (AVG, for instance) very easily and there are numerous spyware/adware removers to be downloaded all over the Internet. When my license runs out on my ZA Internet Security Suite, I probably won't renew it. It's very good, but I don't know if it's really worth the cost and it seems a little invasive for my tastes.

Comodo Firewall is better, also free, & not a gimped version. And I'm not just spouting junk here, Comodo has been testing as one of the best Firewalls for some time now.

Sorry about hijacking this thread, I like to inform and I'm also a disgruntled ex fan of ZA.

Thanks for the heads-ups, PW. Comodo looks pretty good, so when my license runs out, I'll definitely give it a try. Why not, right? If I hate it, I can always return to ZA Basic.

I've switched to Comodo just a little while ago, and have to say, that it works really well. I'm especially glad to get rid of all Symantec's programs, finally, since I'd been using Sygate for a year already. Comodo with AVG and Spybot seem to work together pretty good, and all are free. Just remember to do a scan every now and then, and you should face no big problems.

Glad to help out. You guys should also check out some of Comodo's other programs. Their anti-malware, BOClean is pretty good. They also have a memory firewall program called Comodo Memory Firewall. It's an interesting programs that designed for:

• Detection of Buffer Overflows which occur in the STACK memory,
• Detection of Buffer Overflows which occur in the HEAP memory,
• Detection of ret2libc attacks,
• Detection of corrupted/bad SEH Chains