One feature of Zone Alarm I miss is its control over outbound traffic. A PITA as it learned my machine, it gave me a secure feeling knowing I had program-level control over what called home. Not only for potential mal- and spyware, but I don’t want programs I do trust calling home or checking for updates on their own.
Was that feeling of security an illusion? I uninstalled ZA years ago when I ran into some bloat and compatibility issues. Is it still that way?
If ZA isn’t the way to go, is there a good alternative? I can configure Windows firewall on a case-by-case basis, but I really miss ZA’s immediate notification whenever something new (intentionally installed or not) tried to call out.