Zonealarm Extreme Security

There's an increasing demand for ‘all-in-one’ security programs that combine clean-up and backup tools with standard anti-virus protection and security firm Checkpoint – known for the Zonealarm firewall software – has thrown its lot in this year with the release of Zonealarm Extreme.

This addition to its series of products still has Zonezlarm's familiar interface, which offers direct access to individual tools alongside a summary of current status and a one-click button for running a full scan and correcting problems.

It can also control the firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware functions, parental controls and spam blocker, and for the most part they are easy enough to configure. A good range of advanced settings is available but in most cases we can see users sticking with default values, which enforce a good level of automation to prevent interruptions to your work.

There's also a nice level of online protection through Zonealarm's Force Field, which integrates with the Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers to provide extra protection when surfing. It works against phishing sites and also ensures that your surfing remains private.

The other tools that put the 'extreme' in Zonealarm Extreme are the least appealing additions, since they need to be downloaded and installed separately from the main program.

Online backup is available with 2GB of storage and is admittedly a tidy affair – there’s a range of options for managing backups, with encryption as standard. Since the software can’t save to a disk connected to the computer, it’s going be mainly useful for smaller files that are changed frequently, and for this it is quite capable.

The same cannot be said for the tune-up tools, however, which once installed walk the user through a four-step process of backing up system and registry files, and scanning, repairing and degragmenting the registry. While useful, the tools are far from comprehensive and don't offer enough to compete with rivals.

Despite these rather disappointing additions we were impressed by the capabilities of main suite and the Force Field online protection, even though the interface and general operation felt like it could do with a bit of a refresh.

Scans were fairly fast, the level of protection on offer is comprehensive and well-automated and there is little impact on the general performance of the computer. The whole experience felt a little raw though, and not nearly as streamlined or as well-integrated as an older program such as Norton 360.

Zonealarm is still to be commended for maintaining a high level of protection and security, but if you are looking for a true all-in-one program that will cover your computer’s security, tuning and backup needs, you will find better options elsewhere.