8. Conclusion
As we can see, ZoneAlarm can be a really useful tool for protecting your computer(s), except that it is easy to make mistakes and make it practically useless if it is misconfigured. This document was meant for me to share my own experiences so far with this software and to define security guidelines for everybody to use to make sure it is properly configured to make it deliver its promises. ZoneAlarm is not meant as a complete security solution, but combined with other tools it can improve drastically your network security, whether you are a home user or a network admin. I have only run this kind of configuration on a single PC so far, but I plan to use it on a test network real soon and put it to a real test, in order to have more in-the-field data rather than just theoretical. I am very interested in any experiences ZoneAlarm users may have with what is presented in this paper, or with some of their own findings with that product. You can e-mail me at floydian_99@yahoo.com.
7. Overview of the "Configure" screen