Check Point announces Vista-compatible firewall

Check Point has released an updated ZoneAlarm 7.1 that's designed to work with Windows Vista's architecture. This is the first true two-way firewall for the Windows Vista environment.

Windows Vista includes a firewall but it blocks only inbound traffic, allowing all "except where excepted" outbound traffic.

This means that, if a user acquires a remote-access Trojan on a Windows Vista machine, Microsoft may not flag the outbound traffic.

Explaining its delay in releasing the Vista-ready product, Check Point said: "Rather than rush to market with a patchwork solution when only a small fraction of our users were actually using Vista, we decided to invest in the long term."

This includes building the product on Microsoft's Windows Filtering Platform API, rather than continuing to use the soon-to-be outdated TDI API.

Not only does this provide ZoneAlarm with more stability under Windows Vista, but it means Check Point won't have to rewrite its code when TDI does expire.

ZoneAlarm will continue to provide a free version in addition to its paid versions.

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