Don't say zone alarm, it now automatically defaults out of being a truly bidirectional firewall every time you do an update and given it's current user interface it can take up to an hour and at least one reboot to force it's setting back into actually watching outgoing and incoming internet activity.
I live with a satellite link for internet access and must monitor my bandwidth use closely and in the past year or so I've had a near doubling of the amount of bandwidth used and now add to that I've had unexplained slow downs I've managed to link to extra internet activity, with little to no change in my use of the internet. Needless to say I've been overboard with virus and malware checks and even tried a second computer with a fully clean install, which gave much the same pattern of bandwidth usage.
Today I think I found out what has been going own. To paraphrase one of zone alarms techs "zone alarm isn't designed to stop what should have access to the internet and won't stop it."
In other words for you that are familiar with or use zone alarm it doesn't matter if you place all "X's" on a program if zone alarm's programmers have determined the program should have access to the internet it will have full access to the internet.
Check for yourself. If you use Zone alarm firewall and have the latest updates then try this.
Before you start a web browser go and block off all parts of that browser in zone alarm with all "X's" and see if that actually stops it from accessing the internet.
EXPLANATION
When I was first forced over to "orbital" internet back in 2010, my bandwidth usage was very high and I clamped down with zone alarm and after about a week of carefully watching what wanted access to the internet I discovered that several programs including parts of windows 7 itself was doing a large number of downloads mostly advertisements for the multimedia programs and update checks that would surprisingly often result in a significant download. The 2010 version of Z. A. allowed me to control that and safely reduce my bandwidth usage, but that looks to have changed or started to change some time last year, even in the free versions of Z. A.
So I'd really like to hear recommendations from the members that use different firewalls.
hmelton
God Bless
I live with a satellite link for internet access and must monitor my bandwidth use closely and in the past year or so I've had a near doubling of the amount of bandwidth used and now add to that I've had unexplained slow downs I've managed to link to extra internet activity, with little to no change in my use of the internet. Needless to say I've been overboard with virus and malware checks and even tried a second computer with a fully clean install, which gave much the same pattern of bandwidth usage.
Today I think I found out what has been going own. To paraphrase one of zone alarms techs "zone alarm isn't designed to stop what should have access to the internet and won't stop it."
In other words for you that are familiar with or use zone alarm it doesn't matter if you place all "X's" on a program if zone alarm's programmers have determined the program should have access to the internet it will have full access to the internet.
Check for yourself. If you use Zone alarm firewall and have the latest updates then try this.
Before you start a web browser go and block off all parts of that browser in zone alarm with all "X's" and see if that actually stops it from accessing the internet.
EXPLANATION
When I was first forced over to "orbital" internet back in 2010, my bandwidth usage was very high and I clamped down with zone alarm and after about a week of carefully watching what wanted access to the internet I discovered that several programs including parts of windows 7 itself was doing a large number of downloads mostly advertisements for the multimedia programs and update checks that would surprisingly often result in a significant download. The 2010 version of Z. A. allowed me to control that and safely reduce my bandwidth usage, but that looks to have changed or started to change some time last year, even in the free versions of Z. A.
So I'd really like to hear recommendations from the members that use different firewalls.
hmelton
God Bless