Goodbye ZoneAlarm!

I was a loyal ZoneAlarm firewall user for years. Despite its annoying prompts and resource-hogging, I stuck with it through multiple versions. Even after ZoneAlarm developer Check Point foolishly dropped the software’s cool red-and-yellow logo for the boring green-and-blue one, I still stuck with it.

Today, I uninstalled ZoneAlarm, and I am never installing it again. Here’s the sequence of events that led to this painful breakup.

1) Earlier this year, Internet security expert Dan Kaminsky discovers a fundamental flaw in the domain name system (DNS). Instead of publicizing the problem for hackers to attack, he privately gathers a coalition of major IT vendors to fix it. One of those vendors is Microsoft.

2) On July 8, Microsoft releases automatic update KB953230 to fix the DNS problem on their software. ZoneAlarm users on Windows XP, including myself, suddenly could not browse the Web.

3) After hours of looking for a solution by myself (since I couldn’t surf the Web), I isolate the problem to ZoneAlarm. After KB953230, the only way I could surf the Web was to lower my ZoneAlarm Internet security settings, thus rendering myself vulnerable to attack.

4) Check Point assures users that they will fix this problem posthaste. In the meantime, they advise users to uninstall KB953230. Naturally, I don’t take their advice. I won’t uninstall a critical OS security fix just because Check Point can’t keep up. Instead, I patiently wait for the ZoneAlarm update, surfing the Web with lowered security settings at my own risk.

4) On July 11, Check Point releases ZoneAlarm version 7.0.483.000, which promises to fix the incompatibility with KB953230 and allow users to surf the Web securely again. I try to install the update, but it freezes. After hours of waiting, I’m forced to reset my PC.

5) When my PC restarts, it’s left with a mangled nonworking phantom Frankenstein ZoneAlarm installation that can’t be uninstalled through ordinary means, not even with a third-party removal tool. Turns out I’m not the only one having this problem.

6) After hours of looking for a solution, I settle for a complicated manual ZoneAlarm removal procedure. Even after that, bits and pieces of the thing still lurk in my system. I’ve given up trying to find them. Heck, Windows Security Center thinks ZoneAlarm’s still installed but inactive.

I know the PC platform is a mishmash environment, and sometimes pieces of software temporarily break each other. I can tolerate that. That’s the price of flexibility. In fact, before the ZoneAlarm update, I was willing to call antitrust on Ballmer. Remember that Microsoft has a competing firewall built into Windows.

What I can’t tolerate is a software update that totally mangles itself and leaves a mess all over your system. That was completely ZoneAlarm’s fault, and that’s why I’m done with it.

I’ve now switched to another security solution, and I’m glad I did. My system’s running so much faster and smoother after getting rid of that resource-hogging nag ZoneAlarm. As many people say after a breakup, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.