This post is written by a guest author.
Monday August 11 at 4:14 PM, the fateful day that an email arrived appearing to contain the resolution for a growing problem on the internet, Drive By Downloads. The email said, “In honor of Patch Tuesday, August 12, 2008, ZoneAlarm (Check Point) will be offering ForceField browser security for FREE for only 24-hours!”
I then went to the ForceField section of the Zone Alarm site and read about the features and watched the promos for it. According to the very amusing video promos it’s as simple as 1-2-3 to not only install but also operate. The security of Internet browsing has taken a giant leap forward!
The month prior to this I had been doing a lot of research for the landing page for the launch of Debbie’s eLearning Portal, namely her PC Security and ID Theft courses in conjunction with her celebration of being in business for 10 years. The main purpose of this landing page was to educate the visitor of what’s really going on out there and how extremely important it is for EVERY user to be educated because many of the tools and services are not 100% reliable; it was starting to appear that the only REAL protection is arming yourself with the proper knowledge and her courses are excellent for that, as her many testimonials have shown.
Some of that effort led me to research results on the state of browser patches and security and the growing incidents of Drive By Downloads. As a result of that, it became apparent that surfing online these days isn’t as benign as so many may think it is. It is getting to the point that if you’re not properly educated in what’s going on, you can become a victim and not even know it and this can be regardless of your level of education. Both Debbie and I have come across this but due to our awareness were able to stop it in time or prevent it from happening. (See Mal Ads Report and Drive By Download video) The Zone Alarm ForceField application, upon my initial review, seemed to be a great response to these problems. Here’s what the site tells you:
- Block unauthorized downloads and malicious software installations.
- Protect your identity by blocking phishers and stopping keyloggers.
- Browse the internet in complete privacy–erases all cache, cookies, history and passwords.
- Run it with your existing security software–it’s fast, lightweight, and easy to use
Sounds pretty cool! But wait, there’s more! Here’s a list of known threats and their impact that ForceField will protect you from.
- Drive-by download - Visit the wrong website, and it can download spyware, viruses, or even take control of your PC without your knowledge.
- Keyloggers - Capture and record your keystrokes to obtain passwords, financial information and more.
- Phishers - Trick you into entering confidential information such as passwords and credit cards on bogus web sites.
- Spyware - Installed without your knowledge, spyware can collect your personal information and send it to criminals on the Internet.
- Dangerous downloads - Appear to be safe, like a screen saver application, so the user chooses to download it, but in fact it also installs malicious software.
If you think that’s cool wait until you see their Benefits and Features:
- Virtual Browsing
- Browser Threat Immunity
- Private Browser
- Keylogger & Screengrabber Jamming
- Dangerous Download Detection
- Anti-Phishing
- Spy Site Blocking
- Website Safety Check
- Spyware Flushing
- On-The-Fly Encryption
- Seamless Integration
- Security Software Compatibility
- Fast and Easy to Use
If this isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, I don’t know what is! Although I am being sarcastic, this was close to my initial reaction because based on this and the amusing videos this really did seem like it was going to go a long way in helping to at least stave off these issues that are becoming more and more prevalent. One of the best features being how easy it is to install and use and that it integrates with known security applications. (Click Here to see for yourself)
After reviewing all of this I couldn’t wait for Tuesday to arrive so I could get my copy with a license key for a free year of use! This was going to be great; Secure Browsing has finally arrived!! (I could hardly sleep that night!)
Once I downloaded the application and received my special license key, everything went just as the promos had stated. It installed very easily and put itself as an additional toolbar on both my Firefox and Internet Explorer toolbars which contained a ForceField drop down menu, Protection Activity, Site Status, and Private Browser.
Selecting Settings on the drop down menu produces a small window with a General and Advanced tab. It was very simple and upon initial review all of these settings seemed to be necessary in order to ensure proper protection such as by default ForceField loads on startup of your PC and immediately starts to protect you as soon as you open your browser. This drop down also has a choice in FireFox that puts the toolbar on the Status bar with a menu when clicked on thus relieving you of the space the ForceField takes away from your viewing pleasure. I don’t seem to remember the same option in IE, but am not a big user of it either so didn’t care. 
The Site Status shows you if the site you are on has been detected as a known phishing or spyware distributor, when it was first registered, and where it’s located. These are essential elements in assisting in determining a site’s validity as many mal sites come and go very quickly in order to evade detection.
The Protection Activity gives you a summary of the total MB of possibly harmful data prevented from reaching your PC, the total number of threats that were stopped, and a tally of what those were under the headings of Suspicious sites detected, Phishing sites blocked, Spyware sites blocked, and Virus infected downloads detected, plus the total number of downloads it has scanned.
As far as using the Private Browser, I am the only user of my computer so I only checked it out by clicking on the button; it opened a new browser. Because in the Benefits and Features section it stated that it basically erases everything you do, it did not seem useful for me because whatever I do would be erased including bookmarks, passwords, etc. This only seems useful if there is more than one user of a browser and you want to hide what you’ve done which when you think about it seems kind of dishonest, unless of course you have something to hide. This is why this type of browsing has been termed “Porn Mode”. Maybe it’s because I’m an honest person and don’t have anything to hide is why I don’t understand when this is useful because the only “usefulness” that it serves is when you have something to hide from others.
Actually setting up additional users in Windows would alleviate all of that anyway unless of course you are the admin which would give you access to that information. For example, having Private Browsing on a computer used by a family would never allow the parents to monitor the browsing habits of their children who are notorious for going places they shouldn’t especially when it comes to free downloads but having each child sign in separately would allow proper parental monitoring. This is assuming that one parent isn’t hiding something from the other, but then again that’s deceptive and a guaranteed relationship killer. This whole thing about private browsing which the new version of IE is supposed to have dumbfounds me. Is our society getting so secretive that we have to continually create ways to hide? (Don’t get me started on PC Pandora!!!) This is a review and not an expose on the morals of society so I’ll leave it at this.
All in all my initial browsing experience with ForceField was very good. I did not notice any slow down indicating that ForceField was getting in the way. When I went to my blog which was only a couple of months old, I got a warning about it and was able to tell ForceField that it is okay. Another incident of a link I got in an email for some new internet marketing product brought up a phishing warning. I wasn’t sure if it was a false alarm or not but wasn’t all that interested in the product so I didn’t proceed from there. Each day I monitored the Protection Activity monitoring how ForceField was working. It was nice to browse knowing that a clone would take any malware hits. The sense of security that resulted was refreshing.
But then things began to change; maybe it’s because after working for corporations for the past 10 yrs, one of which was in bankruptcy for 3 years and demolished their long standing defined pension program along with so many other cold hearted choices that I have an inherent distrust that corporations don’t always have my best interest in mind. Maybe it’s because I’m an armchair marketer and love watching how products are promoted, some of which are not done with sincere integrity. Maybe it’s because I’m a geek and love information (I like to watch a computer defrag to see how bad the fragmentation is!). Maybe it’s because I have a knack for processing information resulting in seeing patterns that many others don’t. Maybe it’s because I believe in taking personal responsibility for my actions and am therefore prone to not let others do it for me if at all possible.
Whatever the case, little by little some things started to show up as I continued to use Zone Alarm’s ForceField. At first they were annoyances, but eventually turned into big questions of what is really going on behind the scenes. In Part 2, I will delve into this and let you be the judge as to why something seems to be your best friend yet doesn’t disclose things for the more technically minded who just like to monitor their computer’s processes to ensure the best functionality. This leads to the suspicion that Big Brother may be lurking behind the scenes.
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