Honeymoon Over. DIE ZONEALARM DIE
yes, I should have checked the webpage first to see what had changed in the intervening years, but it was 11pm, and for once I was dead tired at 11pm instead of bouncy, and just clicked "check-for-updates" and then ok on the you-need-to-update prompt.
And I got an installer that had no options other than check-privacy-policy (which I did, made note of a few things to NOT do), and the default-install-with-common-options. In other words, there was no Custom Install option which sort of surprised me. I went ahead and clicked default-install anyhow - and the first thing ZoneAlarm did was (another) huge download and then I see it INSTALLING A TOOLBAR.
Looks like my immediate scream of rage is a common response, if what I read on web searches about the "Security Toolbar" is any indication. That, plus from the complaints in reviews (complete with screenshots) it looks as if having had a custom install screen, and then choosing to uncheck the toolbar, doesn't always work to protect you from having the toolbar installed anyhow.
At any rate, the installation seemed to go OK, then it wanted to reboot to continue, so I said sure, go ahead - I was buried in web searches on my other laptop to find out how to uninstall that goddamned toolbar as soon as things came back up, and also looking for any other gotchas and unwanted-addons that I'd stupidly gotten myself into by stupidly accepting the stupid install.
As is my practice on reboots, I disconnected the network and flicked off the wireless radio. I like having airgapped boots when a machine is in a vulnerable "gotta reboot to finish this" state, and this being an XP box made me even more nervous about reconnecting before the install and reconfiguration was completely done. I like to get the install done, poke around and confirm all is OK, check configuration, and only then let it resume talking to the malware-pushing outside world.
And then the next round of problems started ... the rest of the ZoneAlarm install apparently requires a connection to go back to calling home. It threw up an error and stopped. So I turned on the radio and went to work on that bit. Now, my aircard is set to not broadcast SSID, and I'd forgotten to save the configuration, so I had to take a minute to define the network, enter key and so on, and watched it show a signal strength and connection.
Then out of nowhere, all the wireless networks disappeared.
Windows noticed that the Firewall was off - and turned on its own firewall. Without telling me, of course. This is Windows, they know what we want and if we don't want it well we should have wanted it so they're giving it to us. Lovely, apparently I've got something in the Windows Firewall settings that is preventing the wireless from detecting networks?
Turned off Windows Firewall. No networks. Did various poking-arounds, connection repairs, reboots ... argh.
So now, I have a laptop with a borked ZA install, a toolbar I didn't want, god only knows what other bundled crap is pending, wireless that does not work, and a huge headache.
Well, the toolbar I can take care of. A few seconds in Windows Uninstall-A-Program and that puppy is gone, then a few seconds in Firefox to confirm there's nothing lingering in the add-ons and the home page redirect is no more. Dang, that's Firefox version 3. Well, it's on the list to update, too, but I didn't intend start on the application updates until after the security updates were done.
After each reboot, Lenovo's own communications package takes over control of the wireless so I have to go in and tell Windows no. OK, that's getting uninstalled. On my other machines, had long since uninstalled or disabled the "Toolbox of Annoying Headache creators" that comes with Lenovo laptops, so had forgotten how they add another layer of confusion to any configuration issue. This has been a trip down the lane of "Applications I got sick and tired of dealing with and uninstalled on my other machines, and now I am reliving the last few days of final-straw-frustration with them that led to uninstalls". A whole buncha Think-this-and-that stuff is getting uninstalled.
The machine is still not working, and I'm still pissed.
Granted some of the anger is due to having looked forward to working with ZA again, perhaps even figuring out the issues on my business machine and buying ZA for it instead of the Windows Firewall that I never feel secure about. Instead I feel like I was backstabbed and my machine trashed.
That'll teach me to let tired-and-in-a-hurry make me sloppy about trusting an update, even from a vendor I've had a previously happy relationship with. No more benefit-of-the-doubt.
(update in 1st comment, ugh)