Fee VS. Free Software

Firewalls

ZoneAlarm vs. ZoneAlarm Pro

Choose ZoneAlarm if you want protection for no more than a few Internet-connected PCs, you don't know all that much about firewalls, and you want to save money.

Choose ZoneAlarm Pro if you need advanced network protection, or you want to safeguard PCs that use a virtual private network or Internet Connection Sharing.

In these security-conscious days, a firewall--which controls the flow of data into and out of your PC--has become an essential utility. PC World has often praised Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm. That program (free for individuals, $20 for businesses) used to be Zone's only product, but the company now sells ZoneAlarm Pro, a more feature-rich version.

Fortunately, the free software's capabilities haven't diminished. ZoneAlarm provides just as much protection from hackers as the Pro version. The latter adds features for advanced users and management options for larger networks.

I tested ZoneAlarm freeware and ZoneAlarm Pro version 2.6.362. Both programs can quarantine suspicious e-mail attachments; both can totally block network activity either at the click of a button or when the screen saver kicks in; and both include the handy Desk Band toolbar, a set of icons that offer quick access to more-advanced features.

But only the $40 Pro version lets power users control many additional parameters. For instance, ZoneAlarm Pro can analyze its network surroundings and customize itself to protect a company's virtual private network.

Busy network administrators can save many hours of time by setting up auto-configuration scripts for ZoneAlarm Pro. Most important, the Pro version lets companies password-protect the firewall's settings; this stops workers from bypassing these settings and getting into trouble.

You don't have to be a corporate IT staffer to reap benefits from ZoneAlarm Pro: Thanks to its support for Windows' Internet Connection Sharing, you can protect every computer on a home network that shares a single Internet connection, by having the firewall run just on the gateway PC. For most individual users, however, the protection of ZoneAlarm is more than adequate, and paying $40 to upgrade to the Pro version is overkill. --Andrew Brandt