ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware: a first look
Published: 19 Oct 2005
Building upon its fine reputation as a firewall vendor, Zone Labs has announced its own anti-spyware protection. ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware, which runs on Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000 Pro and XP, and costs £19.95 (inc. VAT) for a single user.
ZoneAlarm can draw upon its own reports of new spyware in the wild from its broad existing installation base, which will help ZoneAlarm issue timely signature file updates to its subscribers. Also, ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware takes advantage of the company's exclusive triple-firewall protection, which protects your operating system kernel, specific applications and network connections. No other firewall currently offers such sweeping protection. ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware costs £19.95 (inc. VAT).
That's unfortunate, since there are three excellent anti-spyware programs -- Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, Ad-Aware SE and Spybot Search and Destroy -- available for free. And in previewing the new antivirus applications for 2006, we find that almost every major antivirus vendor is including anti-spyware protection at no additional cost. We think ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware will have a tough time competing against free and capable alternatives. Zone Labs is late to the party by offering ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware long after other security vendors. However, the company's positive reputation for other products could help this new anti-spyware program survive in an increasingly crowded market.
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