Spyware, viruses, & security forum: Zone Alarm v10 - internet traffic monitor missing!

Bummer! That's what I thought...

Anyway, I've managed to download v9.2, and would appreciate advice on how to install it. v10 doesn't have an option to remove, so if I use the standard windows removal program, will this suffice? Also, if I do remove v10, and re-install v9.2, do I have to start all the settings from scratch or can I transfer all the current settings back again?

Darn CheckPoint - how dare they mess with a program that worked brilliantly for 10+ years and then make it worse!!

I would consider 2nd thoughts.

I also have V10 and I must admit there are aspects I don't really like. The Internet Traffic display, simple as it was, gave some comfort. There is no option when right clicking the icon in the Notification Area to lock out the internet. I don't like the Control Panel.

That said I am sticking with it. I'm not a fanboy, nor a Checkpoint corporate employee and I am undeterred that CheckPoint has 'apparently' turned the software into corporate spyware. There is so much software on Windows' systems nowadays that "phone home" that I long since stopped being concerned by it unless it s something that I have not installed myself or not given permission to install.

The internet traffic display. If you are on broadband it serves little purpose now. You will have, (should have) a network icon in the Notification Area anyway, and if the network fails, then this icon will tell you. With broadband being so fast, sliding displays, as nice as they are, serve little purpose. Effectively the connection is on or off.

The right click option to disable the internet, whilst useful, can be achieved other ways.

The control panel is a mess, I have no alternatives for that, but since I rarely open the CP anyway, I can live with it.

If you decide to go ahead you will, at some time in the future, long or short, lose important security updates and improvements.

But if you do decide to revert back to a previous version you need to do this;

Disable ZoneAlarm from loading at Startup. There may be options in the CP itself and you should look careful at all those options. Head over to the Windows Firewall and enable it.

Reboot. then head over to MSCONFIG to disable any entries in the Startup folder relating to ZA.

Reboot. Head over to the Start menu Control Panel > Programs & Features and uninstall ZA.

Reboot.

Install the lower version.

You may want to look at the ZoneAlarm forums for any other guidance for uninstalling ZA before doing this.

I suspect that none of your settings will be carried forward, but the ZA forums may have better advice.

Mark

Use the uninstall feature first. After that clean your registry. Go to the Windows folder and delete Internet logs folder. Go to the programs folder and delete the Checkpoint folder. Reboot. Then install the version you want to use. This is a wise decision.

The Internet traffic indicator is a useful tool even with broadband. It has saved me a many a times. But the main reason to roll back is to stop someone else by making decision for you. You only need 3 to 8 programs accessing the net. SVCHost which is your internet connection, One or two broswers and your chat programs. Your AV need to access to stay up to date. For me that comes to 5 programs and only 5 programs that get access.

When I made the statement that only a checkpoint employee or a fanboy would like v10 was a little misleading. I left out those who profit from someone deciding for you what gets access to the web. The true profit on the web has become from making you the product. By collecting data on YOU and what you have on your hard drive and the sites you visit has become extremely profitable. Hence the reason Downlaod.com decided to use a download wrapper. They new that the data collected from it would boost profits. Programmers, website operators, and even your firewall and av companies have join the long list of those who spy on your puter and its usage. That is why I do not use these so called Internet Suite programs. They all have a built in whitelist. One company even brags about having 15,000,000 approved programs that they will allow access to the web. I wonder how many of these companies PAY to be on the whitelist so they can collect data on YOU.

I wish you luck and do not fall for corporate spyware scams being pulled on the innocent web users.

I always enjoy your replies. When I refer to the innocent I mean those who do not understand how the new firewalls work or even how the old ones work. That just about everything on there puter is being allowed access to the web. When I tried out the new ZoneAlarm v10 I used a program that used Open Candy as the installer at it was allowed access to the web without an alert. I also used the new Download.com wrapper and it was allowed access to the web. I was SHOCKED by that behavior and all I could think of was the INNOCENT users who do not what is happening and because of that their puter usage is being phoned home and more data is collected on them.

Now this is just my humble opinion, but is it not the job of a firewall to alert the user to this kind of behavior. That a program is trying to access the web to phone home. I find it hypocritical, for a company to claim that they are about security and then allow these things to happen.

So few seem to know about it.

It's worth its own discussion.

I, like you, doubt many know of it. I knew from the beginning of smart phones that they should just give them away. They would be nothing more then a data collection device. Did you read about how Malls used them this Black Friday to track the user traffic while in the mall. That included all cell phone not just the smart ones. Congress should pass privacy laws governing this but they never will. We are slowing moving towards a country that is giving away it right to privacy with out even knowing it.

Who was it that said. If you take away all their rights at one time there will be a war. If you take them away one at a time they will not know until it is to late.

But is worthy of its own discussion.

Congress is not pro-privacy at this time. What I work on is more tracking. Not less.

Removed the horrible v10. and reverted back to v9.2. I intend to ignore all future messages to 'upgrade'. I love having my internet traffic monitor back, like the return of an old (& useful) friend...

You may be interested in the following. Whilst removing v10, I got a pop up window inviting a 'chat' to see why I was taking it out. Here is the official reason they told me why they had removed the monitor:-

<i>Greg K.: That (traffic monitor) was
removed. Customers had a hard time locating the ZoneAlarm icon at times
with network activity.
</i>

Honestly, some people shouldn't be allowed out without adult supervision!!

That does not surprised me at all. It is always the customers problem.

When they first released the OS firewall, they locked down the temp folder so you could not install anything that needed to unzip to the temp folder to start the install. I thought this was a bug in the software so I emailed them thinking I was helping by reporting it. Remember this is the paid for version. Their response to my email was a if I no longer like the product I whould just uninstall it and not to bother them anymore with my complaints. I clearly stated in the email that I was reporting what I thought was a bug and in no way could anyone have interpreted the email as a complaint. Needles to say that was the last time I bought anything from them.

"Quit bothering us" is the typical reply. "we've removed that feature, too bad, go with our competition" "Oh, you can't do that anymore, we don't want anyone to use our product" "we just changed the interface so you can't find anything. buy something, even though you hate the current product you just got free because we borked it all up, and then uninstall it and don't use it" "we don't listen"
Just give us back the traffic monitor and change the interface to something useable. When I see "options" I want OPTIONS for the FIREWALL not "buy our other products" How about a right click on the taskbar takes you to the actual options, such as program control, interface options, turn off updates option, logs, whatever?
PLUS have it stop blocking my tray icons by default on XP and reporting my wireless connection as "SUSPICIOUS" I've always had enough trouble with this on this laptop without Zonealarm blocking the damn Dell wireless utility because.. OMG it uses a Setting IN REGISTRY!
I'd actually forgotten about all the problems version ten has, I had to roll back my XP desktop (when it's not booted into Linux) to a 9x version, and locked so it can't update. I also did the same on my wife's laptop. I guess I'll have to do the same on this one, which I unwisely allowed to update.
I hate updates of any sort unless they're seamless. Hence, NOT UPDATING from XP to vista,7, or windows broken 8 with the illegally named "metro" (that's a linux app) interface. OH SORRY they don't call it that anymore, why don't they just call it CRAP then?