It took me longer than usual to figure out that vsmon.exe was the cause of my slow booting and slowdowns.

After using ZA (paid / multiple PCs) successfully for many years I was lulled into a false sense of security. There were a few hiccups along the way, but they were always fixed.

Years ago I used Norton Utilities, when Peter Norton still owned the company, and the product was brilliant!

Anyone remember Norton Navigator (aka Xtree Gold for Windows)... the BEST ever file manager for windows?

As soon as Symantec got their hands on the Norton products, Navigator was eliminated and the slide of the Utilities and Security products into unuseable bloatware commenced.

So it looks like history has repeated with Checkpoint bloating our beloved ZA into a resource hog.

There's another good program ditched.

Vale ZoneAlarm. RIP Jan 2008.

I purchased the ZoneAlarm Security Suite after trying the 15 day trial and I loved it. I thought it was the greatest software since "rye bread!" Hey, I like rye bread.

I got great service from ZoneAlarm while I was using the trial. Now, it doesn't seem the same. I had to ask them the same question a couple of times and I'm now asking you all if I did the right thing to remove something out of Quarantine. I think it's o.k.

I'm not knocking ZoneAlarm. I think they have a great product. I used to use NORTON too. Symantec doesn't help you as much as they should, but when I had a virus, they got it off my computer pretty quickly.

What do you think of AVG or any of the other Security Suites or Anti-virus programs?

Also, how easy is it to tell if you have a monitoring program on your computer or IF someone is invading your privacy?? Just asking.

Thank you.

ZA seems to be fine here.. no real slow downs at all.. Yea at boot up it might take alittle more time when you Have ZA installed VS not installed. Of coarse its going to take up some CPU time when its protecting you wither it be people spaming your ass with packets, and its blocking them.. or programs connecting to the internet when they shouldn't be.. or when its asking you if you want a new program to connect to the internet.

My thread about Jittr Networks for example about packet spam.. but still I don't see any slow downs.. and I'm running a XFX 680i LT mobo with a Core 2 duo 2.33GHZ 1333FSB (6550) and a XFX 8600GT XXX, and 2GB of OCZ Nvidia RAM.. my Ethernet port is also produced by Nvidia too. Maybe its your port.. or modem.

P.S. My Antivirus is AVAST!. Both are the free versions.

I am still using the last "unbloated" free version 6.5.737 and I love it. I tried the free version of the ZAISS when it went to version 7 and it crashed my computer.

It turns out that the slowdown is caused by vsmon.exe which sits in memory even if you shut down ZASS. This is easily confirmed with process explorer, etc.

At startup vsmon loads into memory and performs a scan "behind the scenes". If you have large disks, many prog's installed and heaps of files, this process can take minutes... even on a fast machine.

It is not possible to shut down vsmon. The only way to run without it is to set ZASS to not load at startup.

I've changed to Comodo and the slowdowns are gone. Comodo is not a full suite like ZASS, but more than adequate for me. Oh, and it's free.