Zonealarm Extreme Security

Zonealarm Extreme is Checkpoint’s answer to Norton 360, adding backup and tune-up tools along with its impressive Forcefield online protection to the Internet Security core engine.

After a rather lengthy installation that requires a combination of scans and updates, it becomes apparent that the ‘headline’ additions, namely backup and tune-up, must be installed separately and behave as standalone tools.

These are both fairly rudimentary, as backup includes encryption and useful options such as multiple file-version support and live monitoring, but it can only be used to save files to the 2GB of online space provided.

The tune-up tool is focused around scanning, backing up and repairing the Registry and is hardly comprehensive, so we were a little disappointed not to see a level of integration comparable to Norton 360.

The Forcefield component works well though, protecting Internet Explorer and Firefox against a range of threats using a virtual browser, which also allows you to prevent any traces of a current session from being recorded.

The security-related aspect of the suite is typically effective and Zonealarm maintains its excellent and well-deserved reputation with a powerful firewall and comprehensive threat detection. Scan times are reasonable, at around six minutes for a quick scan and just under an hour for a normal scan and, as with Norton 360, these decrease as the software gets to know your system.

There’s little to criticise when it comes to core components but we were disappointed by the limited additional tools and poor integration. There’s still a commendable collection of security and protection on offer but we’d question the value in paying extra for the new additions to this particular version.