Hello 2nik,
You apparently want to do the very best job of protecting your machine.
I agree with your intention, and do the same myself.
But apparently, you also want to be "assured" that you are "only" using the very best tool(s).
Such "assurance" is not possible.
We can offer information about products that are "known-bad" because they either do a poor job of protection, or have stolen their materials from legitimate companies, or use devious and malicious procedures to invade the user's computer, bundle spyware into their tool, make false-positives to alarm the user into buying their product, or simply use misleading statements for the purpose of getting your money.
Here's a reliable source to help you guard against the "bad-guys".
(even though I recognize that you're not asking this question.)
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm
We cannot tell you which company or tools will be the one which protects your specific machine during your specific uses, in the future when you encounter a brand-new threat appearing in the wild.
Every major computer publication in the world periodically endorses an anti-virus or anti-spyware tools as their "Editor's Choice" or "Top Pick". But if you were to follow the reviews over a year's time, you would notice that top recommendations change about as often as the music stops during a round of Musical Chairs in the now proverbial "cake-walk". What is reliable over time, is the cluster of top products that maintain their position of "competent protection", in a highly competative environment.
You've selected Zone Alarm Suite. Zone Labs, and now their parent company, Check Point Securities have been in the business for a long time, with good business practices and good products. But there has not been sufficient time on market, to assure that this new Suite product will do everything for everyone at every time into the future. Such a claim is actually never likely to be substantiated for any product. But they are a good company and a good product and are likely to serve you well, for a long time into the future.
But this is still not responsive to your question.
Top Ratings often emerge when a company makes a "break-through" discovery. SunbeltSoftware's CounterSpy jumped to the head of the paid product anti-spyware list earlier this year when it cracked and helped provide data to prosecute a trojan based attack that was systematically using user information to attack financial institutions and bleed savings and credit funds from hundreds of thousands of individuals. WebRoot's SpySweeper, more recently went to the head of the list when it took a lead position in protecting against another type of emerging threat. I'm glad we have all of the paid and free utilities researching, detecting and protecting against the many thousands of new threats that are cropping up continuously.
But you may still find that I'm not being responsive to your question.
You wrote:
If I was just running Zone Alarm Firewall, I could certainly understand the need for other programs, but according to Zone Labs, the Suite covers it all
.
Hey, if I was marketing a product, I would be describing how my product competently addresses all the known threats that I wanted my customers to be protected from. I'd describe the benefit of my products comprehensive and wide-ranging protection too. But time and emerging malware attacks tell a different story. The story is that once a vulnerability is identified and protected against, the bad-guys find and focus on a new vulnerability. Which free or paid product catches them first is a matter of good investigative work, and the consistently competent companies and products do that. But they don't all catch the bad-guy "first".
So it is a good idea to give attention to a range of product protection strategies, and to stay educated.
Actually, all of the free products that that have been recommended in this thread, have consistently stayed in the top tier of their catagories, and are frequently recommended by serious experts. And since they are free, you can have them on your machine and therefore available in case of need in the future.
I use one paid antivirus, and one paid antipsyware in addition to my router, firewall, blocking utilities, and free spyware utilites. I use a "rotating schedule" such that I update and scan with each tool in sequence over a period of time according to my internet usage. I don't get bogged down in scanning with all of them all of the time, but in rotation they stay pretty well updated and available if I should ever need them. I find that my paid anti-virus, paid anti-spyware, and free Spybot S&D provide good updates most frequently. SpywareBlaster, IE-Spyad, and MVPS Hosts file update less frequently and you may maintain good protection by updating any of them in the range of once every few weeks to once monthly or so. (the user doesn't actually "scan" with these blocking tools, because they provide passive reference blocking, all the time.)
but I had this massive attack
Your "Best" defense will always be your own educated "good judgement" in your browsing, email, and IM usage. Here's a great educational tool, the Safe-Surfing CD from PCPitstop. If you view it, have your family view it, have your company/employees view it, and pass it along to friends who are internet users, you will be creating more safe users, and that benefits us all.
http://pcpitstop.com/store/safesurfing.asp
Here are some additional online sites that address the issue of how users get infected and what they can do to protect themselves.
It is not by accident that all of these Top Experts recommend using both SpywareBlaster and MVPS Hosts File, and in some cases also IE-SpyAd. Give them a read.
http://castlecops.com/postlite7736-.html
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=27971
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/main.htm
http://pcpitstop.com/spycheck/default.asp
But even before you consider which products to install for protection, make sure your basic operating system and browser(s) are as secure as you can make them.
Keep your operating system (Win Xp in your case?) up-to-date regularly
Use a "limited permission" account login. Do not routinely browse from an Administrative Permission login.
Set your IE security settings to the recommended "default" levels, or higher.
Consider using an "alternative" browser.
Fire Fox and Opera may be"safer" because neither allows ActiveX commands by default.
Use Google Toolbar on your browser for protection against PopUps.
Never "click" on banner adds, adds by google, popups, unexpected emails, or IM attachments.
When contacting your bank or various online payment sites that you may use, always contact them by typing in their correct URL in your browser and do not "click" links embedded in email notices that may have come from "spoofed" email scams.
Set you Email client (for instance Outlook) to display only text and not HTML code. (lots of the bad stuff in email scams is "hidden" in html, and "clickable" pictures/links.)
Configure your Email client so that it does not display "preview" snippets of incoming email.
Use "user defined rules" to deflect/delete spam in your email client, or use a utility like MailWasher to clean out hazards and spam before they even reach your email client. If you only use online email like Hotmail or Yahoo, you already have some measure of protection, but junk can still get through. Use the above cautions about "clicking".
So now, you're probably exhausted of reading my commentary, but I hope you are also more informed.
Congratulations to you if you've already read this far.
I heartily commend you for asking your questions, and encourage you to read the linked information that I've included for your reference.
There are no easy answers, but you're on the right track!
I'm glad you decided to participate here at TomCoyote Forums!
Doug
