that was created years ago by a group of Israeli programmers who probably made a bundle a few years ago by selling it to AOL. Why on earth would Zone Alarm be a problem if it was indeed bought by an Israeli company? If the Mossad wants copies of my 10,000+ cat photos, they are welcome to them! (But of course, not welcome to publish them w/o my permission.)
I use the free version of Sygate since when I used the paid version of Zone Alarm a few years back, it caused more problems than it was worth. I believe that most of them have probably been worked out by now, but I'm happy with my set-up.
I've heard of Kerio but have not tried it. There also is a freeware program called 'Tiny Personal Firewall'.
One good way to get info on programs like this is to read the UseNet groups on these types of programs. There are some pretty active ones:
alt.comp.anti-virus, comp.security.firewalls and alt.computer.security.
I also like the CastleCops security website.
Its forum is at:
http://castlecops.com/forums.htmlThey have a room on firewalls in general, and one on Zone Alarm.
They are pretty well moderated, so I think they keep the threads on point.