ZoneAlarm Free Firewall+Antivirus Not for Me

5/07/2012

Got an 8-year-old PC with ZoneAlarm and Avast? Don't be tempted to upgrade to the free ZoneAlarm Firewall+Antivirus. I did during the weekend and didn't realize it doesn't work with Dragon Naturally Speaking 9, which is now vital for my work since using my hands to type for long periods is too much of a strain. Dragon would hang at the loading screen and ZA wouldn't give me the pop up to add it. It also refused to allow me to manually add it and all controls would reset themselves. So, I uninstalled, which took forever and didn't work right, because the reinstall of the free firewall without the antivirus decided that my computer would no longer finish rebooting.  Into safe mode we go and uninstall again. Back to normal-ish. How about a system restore? Note quite right. Now Zone Alarm won't finish initializing. Yeah, thanks for the protection. Two hours later (two hours I could have been working), I finally have Zone Alarm back. Fingers crossed that Avast reinstalls a little easier than that.
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And we're done. Thank you, Avast, for working with me instead of being an ass.