| McAfee Firewall vs. Norton Personal Firewall 2002 vs. ZoneAlarm Pro
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| By Calvin Hall |
| (6/24/02) |
Threat levels on the Internet vary widely depending on your computer, its operating system, and how you connect to the Internet. Computers with a static IP address and an always-on connection are the most vulnerable to hackers, while a dial-up connection through a big ISP such as AOL poses very little risk. System administrators who watch their server logs know there are plenty of people actively poking around looking for access to any Internet-connected computer, so no matter what your connection, there is always some threat.
And not all threats come from the outside. Applications you install might be programmed to use your Internet connection. Some are innocently looking for newer versions so you can have the latest software available, while some are malicious, tracking your computer usage for others to capitalize on it. Either way, you should know what's going on. A good firewall will monitor your Internet connection, only letting communication you approve get through and making your computer invisible to all those hackers looking for access.
There are a lot of good firewall products available today. We've compared three of the most popular, McAfee Firewall, Norton Personal Firewall 2002, and ZoneAlarm Pro, to find which will keep you best protected.
Configuration simplicity
ZoneAlarm Pro takes the least amount of download time, as it weighs in at only 3.4MB. Both McAfee and Norton are well over 10MB. All three require some form of basic registration (including your name and a valid e-mail address) to run. Norton requires preregistration with a download link and instructions sent to your e-mail address. Once installed, each program checks its manufacturer's site for updates.
ZoneAlarm Pro holds the lead for ease of setup and configuration; the program automatically preconfigures access permissions and privacy settings, giving you simple choices from low to high security and the kind of alerts you want about access attempts. The default settings are good, but if you have a broadband connection you may want to turn alerts off, as you will be seeing them frequently. ZoneAlarm's setup also scans your computer for Internet access-enabled programs such as Web browsers and e-mail clients, putting them on its list of trusted programs. You can change these settings easily, and ZoneAlarm will ask if you want to let any new program you install access the Internet.
Norton Personal Firewall and McAfee Firewall also feature wizard-type setups with default privacy and security values set reasonably high. Though not as simple to use as ZoneAlarm Pro's setup, Norton vastly outperforms both of the others in autodetecting Internet-enabled programs. Norton's standards for Internet accessibility are so easy to meet that you might be overwhelmed by the amount of applications it lists, but you can always add them one-by-one later, on an as-needed basis. Norton's setup also includes a security assistant, which asks you to enter personal information (such as bank accounts, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers) that it can completely block from ever being sent from your computer.
Frequent CNET Download.com contributor Calvin Hall is a freelance computer industry journalist.
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