Zone Alarm 5 Beta Review

An anonymous reader writes "ZoneAlarm is getting ready to announce version 5 of its security software firewall, ZoneAlarm. Though there are a few changes that are presently available on the new beta, this review mentions that there are still many security issues to resolve. Grc.com scan reveals that ZoneAlarm Beta 5 failed to close port 25 and fails to give useful information to the user about possible security services being shut off."

Comments

Re:Wait, do we respect Gibson now?

[Captain Splendid]

He might be a little strident, but he's willing to educate and help people. Contrast this with AV and Firewall companies who are simply content to ram their products down your throat.

IMO, we need more guys like him.

Overblown, but helpful.

[Futurepower(R)]

Gibson has been very helpful to the Windows and novice computing community. All the magazines have been taken over by the do-anything-for-money people; they cannot be trusted. Where does a Windows novice get information?

When you are new to computing it is difficult to believe that Windows is as vulnerable as it is. A novice keeps saying, "Microsoft is a big, successful company, why would they be so self-destructive?"

It's true that Gibson is amazingly overblown at times.

Sky is falling attitude

[bangular]

I wouldn't exactly say what he does is education. Many times he just scares users by taking a security situtation and blowing it out of proportion. For example, the XP raw sockets fiasco, or syn flooding routers with a spoofed source address of the host being attacked. Both of those are problems, but the way he talked about them, he acted like they would bring the internet to a stand still.

Re:Sky is falling attitude

[DigiShaman]

So far, nothing else is working as far as getting the message out. Joe Shmoe still doesn't get it! Viri run wild, Windows constantly being exploited, and user are being hasty on clicking through all of those pop-ups (Spyware anyone). I'm sad to say, but there is no other choice to reach the masses then with mass hysteria that GRC provides. It's too bad really, but at least he provides a means at getting the message out even it it's a bit over zealous.

Re:Wait, do we respect Gibson now?

[Spoing]

I've always had respect for Steve Gibson, though I can understand why he gets such flack from technically knowledgeable people.

He is one of those people who you have to adjust for, and if you don't you'll just miss the point of what he's trying to say. Once you do, what he says makes a whole lot of sense and he does not come off as a light-weight tech by any means.

His main focus, for many years, seems to be this;

1. Explain technical issues to moderately technical people so that they do not consider themselves idiots.

2. Hype it up a bit for effect.

   Important: Tell the nit-pickers to #uck off.

The hype rubs many geeks the wrong way since we want to know the real details and with those details we can figure out for ourselves if something is important or not.

When his errors or lack of total completeness is brought up, he drops into #uck off mode. Yep, he is a bit arrogant, though most techies are. He does have an ego and will snipe back if sniped...so?

I have friends who I don't agree with, who do things I don't like, though if it's in character I let it pass; "Jack is being Jack".

Hammer Steve Gibson when he deserves it, though consider that most of the time he's not so horribly off the mark when you consider his audience and basic attitude.

Re:This is an example from GRC.com

[Anonymous Coward]

A good example of how Gibson entirely missed the point. Raw Sockets are restricted to Administrator users. The real issue is that XP gives users Admin access by default, not that it has raw sockets.

If he had flamed MS for their poor out-of-box user configuration, he would have had 100% of the techie world behind him.