ZoneAlarm
Ranked 7 of 8 firewalls by recommenders
Windows firewall that asks permission before programs connect to the internet. Critics say programs running at the same privilege level could bypass it.
Windows firewall that asks permission before programs connect to the internet. Critics say programs running at the same privilege level could bypass it.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Asks permission for program connections
“how impressed I was by ZoneAlarm in the early 2000s asking permission for itself to connect to the Internet”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “LittleSnitch for Linux” “The "good" Windows firewalls like Outpost and Zone Alarm used to have features to catch this”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “LittleSnitch for Linux”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Steals keyboard focus
“I absolutely despised the implementation that stole keyboard focus”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors” Many rules and ongoing upkeep
“pained myself with all the little rules and upkeep”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “LittleSnitch for Linux”
Other firewalls people recommend
The four most recommended other firewalls, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pf (OpenBSD Packet Filter) | 53 | 7 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| nftables | 29 | 10 | 74% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LuLu firewall | 27 | 3 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
| iptables | 15 | 22 | 41% | 7 | — | — |
| ZoneAlarmThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It became ground zero for reporting about infected systems.”
“The "good" Windows firewalls like Outpost and Zone Alarm used to have features to catch this”
“it got the soft side of its security job right as well as the hard part”
“ZoneAlarm otoh, was snakeoil. Programs that ran at the same privilege level (typically everything) could bypass it”
“Completely forgot about this great piece of freemium!”
“pained myself with all the little rules and upkeep”
“the taskbar addon they had which showed realtime bandwidth usage and what applications had active connections was really useful”
“one of them introduced a neat feature of running executables in containers”
“how impressed I was by ZoneAlarm in the early 2000s asking permission for itself to connect to the Internet”
“I absolutely despised the implementation that stole keyboard focus”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.