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Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm Security Suite combines the latest version of the company's firewall with new privacy-protection features and Computer Associates' ETrust EZ Antivirus. Unfortunately, the $70 suite doesn't provide the level of security that it should, and in the process the company has made the ZoneAlarm firewall less useful than before.

During installation, the suite checks for installed antivirus programs and prompts you to enable its own protection if it doesn't find any running. Unfortunately, it searches only for products from Computer Associates, McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro, overlooking products from dozens of other vendors and risking conflicts as a result.

To gauge ZoneAlarm's anti-spyware prowess (a must in any security suite worth its mettle), I tested a shipping version against spyware used in the June issue's "Bigger Threats, Better Defense." No suite offers the same protection as stand-alone tools such as Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft's Ad-aware (which detected 57 percent of the active infectors), but ZoneAlarm failed to detect a single one. And when I used the suite to scan a disc containing 200 spyware samples, it detected just 36, a shockingly low 18 percent of them.

Zone Labs' revamp of the firewall's program-access settings was also disappointing. A new feature that makes access decisions based on a database of known good applications is handy for novices but will quickly annoy advanced users, and disabling it triggers a flood of alerts.

Zone Labs made its name by offering a solid firewall with excellent access controls. This suite alters those controls and adds features that don't work all that well. If you want a single security package, try Trend Micro's PC-cillin Internet Security 2004 instead.

Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Security Suite

New suite lacks effective spyware protection and mangles its own firewall's usefulness.
Price when reviewed: $70
Current prices (if available).