McAfee Refuses to work with ZoneAlarm

The other day I was sitting at my windows box at home, and McAfee AV popped up a message prompting me to do a recommended upgrade of their software. Why not, right? After all, ever since I bought this computer they have been happily charging me every for renewing their license. And every time they upgrade the interface, the software gets a little more bloated. But the danger is that if you do not keep up with the engine upgrades, you may get locked out from the definitions, and that means you are wasting money.

So I agreed to the upgrade. But I was told straight out that I absolutely cannot have ZoneAlarm installed on my system. WTF? Gotta love the anti-competitive spirit. But since I recently paid for the next few months of AV coverage, I decided to remove ZA which is free.

My AV got upgraded, so I figured I will be sneaky and try to install ZA again. No such luck. The install crashes every single time. The box is sitting behind the NAT so I’m not really exposed to all the crazy internet traffic, but I still like to keep a software firewall on just in case.

So ZA is out. I tried Agnitum Outpost in the past, but it gave me nothing but trouble. Half of the applications wouldn’t connect even though I gave them explicit permissions, and opened relevant ports. Besides, it seems that they no longer support the free version. You can still download it, but there is no link to it on the main page. And of course the Windows Security Console does not acknowledge it so I kept getting the annoying warning messages all the time.

I tested a 30 day Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall and it was good. But McAfee hated it and claimed I do not have a firewall installed (windows seemed to be ok with it though). I really do not like to be annoyed like that, so I decided that it’s not worth to pay for it. If it was free, I’d probably keep it…

I presently settled with Comodo Firewall which seems to play nicely with both windows and McAfee. It looks and feels much like ZoneAlarm, so it is not much of a change. So far it is working flawlessly. According to PC Magazine, it is in fact the superior choice.

[tags]comodo firewall, agnitum outpost, sunbelt kerio, zone alarm, mcafee, firewall, free firewall[/tags]