>>>Right now ZA isn't perfect with user switching, but it's fairly functional.<<<
I didn't know that free personal use was designed for more than one person to use it.
The new version went in nicely, and loads faster. It preserved all settings and was a seamless, uneventful upgrade.
However, this is a temporary fix. Z/A will release version 3.0 probably next month. The following is an extract from David Coursey's column (ZD Net) on 11 October:
This week Zone Labs announced the 3.0 versions of its wildly popular personal firewall and security products, ZoneAlarm and ZoneAlarm Pro. Key improvements include a beefed-up firewall, support for Windows XP, a much-improved user interface, and more help for users who want to understand the alerts the software presents to them.
The beta software I tested was still a work in progress and won't be released for a month or so. But the company announced the new version ahead of time, because it wanted customers to understand that XP support and other requested improvements are on the way. It also seemed to feel some competition from the Nortons of the world, recently out with their 2002 releases. I'd rather have seen the software announced when it was ready for download, but I didn't get a vote.
STILL, IT'S HARD to get upset with a company as aggressively user-friendly as Zone Labs. After building what most reviews and user comments I've seen say is a top-notch security product, the company chose a radical marketing plan: They give the software away.