ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013 Review

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013 does everything a free firewall should, and includes a number of bonus features that are relevant to security. It's tough, it blocks hackers, and it manages program control without a deluge of popups. Sure, commercial product do even more, but ZoneAlarm remains Editors' Choice for free firewall protection.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Main Window

The main window for ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2012 includes a place-holder panel for antivirus protection. Those not already using another antivirus should activate this protection.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Firewall Tab

The firewall tab clearly delineates this tool's two main features: firewall protection against outside attack and application control to prevent betrayal from within.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Basic Firewall Settings

The "zone" in ZoneAlarm refers to the distinction between trusted and public networks. By default it applies stronger restrictions for networks identifies as public.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Application Control Settings

DefenseNet checks ZoneAlarm's huge database to automatically configure permissions for known programs. For unknowns, it defaults to medium protection as a balance between decent security and fewer popup alerts.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Firewall Popup

When ZoneAlarm detects an unknown program attempting Internet or network access it asks you whether to allow or deny it. In testing, I didn't encounter a huge number of popups.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Suspicious Behavior

The OSFirewall component may kick in with a warning when it detects suspicious behavior. As with the firewall connection popups, you must decide whether to allow or deny the behavior. This montage shows a variety of warnings that appeared when I installed a collection of old PCMag utilities.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Identity and Data Protection

ZoneAlarm's identity and data protection components include hosted online backup, a free subscription to an identity protection service, and protection against phishing websites.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Identity Guard

If you choose to sign up for the free Identity Guard service you'll get credit monitoring, email alerts, and unlimited toll-free customer service.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Phishing Protection

When ZoneAlarm detects a fraudulent (phishing) website it displays this strong warning. The site shown here looks like PayPal, but the URL in the address bar reveals that it's a total fraud.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Suspicious Website

Some sites that aren't actively fraudulent may still be dangerous. For such sites, ZoneAlarm displays a yellow warning banner, with a link to get more details about the site.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Site Check

Any time ZoneAlarm displays a red or yellow site warning it includes a link to display full website info. You can also click the Site Check button on the toolbar to check out the current page.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Online Backup

With your free ZoneAlarm firewall you also get 5GB of free hosted online backup, powered by iDrive. With continuous backup enabled, it will backup the changes to any protected files as soon as you finish editing them.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Encryption Key

Out of the box, ZoneAlarm's backup uses a default key for encryption. If you choose to set your own key, ZoneAlarm can't decrypt your backup. On the other hand, if you forget your key your backup will be inaccessible.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Facebook Privacy Test

From the toolbar you can invoke ZoneAlarm's Facebook privacy test. The test app checks four important privacy areas and gives you a score; if your score is low, you can get help improving it.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Comment Report

The statistics links in the privacy report are live. Clicking one gets you a more detailed report, with an option to link through to each actual item.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Do Not Track Me

Powered by partner Abine, ZoneAlarm's Do Not Track Me toolbar button displays the number of tracking elements on the current page. Clicking the button gets more detail, with an option to turn on blocking.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2013: Trackers Blocked

When Do Not Track Me blocking is enabled you can get a list of the advertisers and other trackers that it's blocking.