I have an evolving theory that the best software today is coming from newer and more agile companies. Look past the software dinosaurs that got us to this point in computer history, and you'll find a handful of successful new software companies that, in my mind, will be major power players within the next 10 to 15 years. These second-generation software companies are able to take the best of what worked before and combine it with what hasn't yet been tried. I predict that some of the venerable software dinosaurs will cease to exist within a few years, and I think this will be especially true within the desktop computer security space.

Old-school software vs. new-school software
As for the dinosaurs, take, for example, Microsoft, a very large general software company that has been very slow to change with the times and has lost almost all of its innovative magic. Consider how Microsoft is now desperately playing catch-up with the Mozilla Organization; the current IE Internet browser lacks all the cool features you can easily find in the latest release of Firefox. (And, it needs to be noted, the new version of IE will run on only Windows XP SP2 machines.) As another example, Google Search currently blows MSN Search right out of the water.

	Imagine Microsoft discarding the next version of Office in favor of a whole new paradigm. Not likely.

A few weeks ago, when Google launched its personalized home page feature, I was at the Google headquarters, and what impressed me most was the confession by the design team leader that they had created one version, only to discard it; they then repeated this process two more times until they felt they'd gotten it right. Imagine Microsoft discarding the next version of Office in favor of a whole new paradigm. Not likely.

Thus, for digital picture editing, Google Picasa is superior to Microsoft Digital Image (or for that matter Corel Paint Shop Pro). And Google Earth is already way cooler than Microsoft's promises regarding its upcoming Virtual Earth. Google abides by the old hacker maxim that software should be free. Thus, there are both free and paid versions of Google Earth, but you have to pay for just about everything that Microsoft produces.

Old-school security vs. new-school security
The same is true with computer security companies. I grew up with Peter Norton's and John McAfee's helpful utility software--first on DOS, then Windows--but just because these companies have changed platforms doesn't mean that Symantec, McAfee, and others from that early era have truly evolved their products to handle today's emerging Internet dangers. Antivirus apps such as Norton AntiVirus and McAfee VirusScan are essentially 1980s virus signature-definition technology apps with a bit of generic virus heuristics thrown in. Last year, Symantec did add some basic firewall technology to the Norton AntiVirus product, but essentially the NAV product gets repackaged year after year. Imagine Symantec discarding the core of Norton AntiVirus in favor a new paradigm. Again, not likely.

When building an Internet security suite, both Symantec and longtime rival McAfee start with their signature products, their antivirus apps, then add personal firewalls, spam-blocking tools, and more recently, spyware-blocking tools. This bundling makes sense--you need all of these apps to stave off potential Internet dangers these days--and also I think Symantec gets it right by recognizing that spyware and computer viruses have similar characteristics. But the suites from Norton and McAfee don't really function well as a whole; in my opinion, instead of rethinking the whole suite as a separate tool and truly integrating the products within, they just repackage the standalone products. As a result, Norton Internet Security with Antispyware suite, for example, can be a serious resource hog on older PCs.

New and very agile
Enter a small company called Zone Labs (now owned by Check Point). From the very beginning, Zone Labs abided by the hacker credo that software should be free and, thus, offered users both free and paid personal firewalls that were truly fantastic. The Internet dangers I write about today can mostly be stopped by having a good personal firewall. When you start with a good personal firewall, you can then layer on additional security--which is what Zone Labs did.

	For ZoneAlarm Internet Security 6.0, the company didn't just slap on some spyware protection--no, it went back to its original product, the firewall, and changed the paradigm a bit.

Last year, Zone Labs took its free firewall and partnered with Computer Associates, using its antivirus technology. eTrust EZ Antivirus is one of the lightest antivirus scanners we've tested (see the review of version 6.2), and it fared well on the VB 100 percent list. By partnering with a best-of-breed antivirus, Zone Labs introduced ZoneAlarm with Antivirus for a mere $20 per copy (roughly the price of EZ Antivirus by itself).

Taking it up a level, ZoneAlarm partnered with MailFrontier, our current Editors' Choice award winner for best antispam technology. For $70, ZoneAlarm Internet Security will get you the best firewall, a very good antivirus app, and superior spam protection. What was missing, up until now, was spyware protection.

ZoneAlarm 6.0 family
For its latest release of ZoneAlarm, the company added another firewall layer, one that blocks threats to the Windows kernel. These days, it's at the kernel level of your operating system that malicious code embeds itself and often can't easily be removed. So for ZoneAlarm Internet Security 6.0, the company didn't just slap on some spyware protection--no, the creators went back to the original product, the firewall, and changed the paradigm a bit. Whereas ZoneAlarm has always done an excellent job at blocking inbound and outbound malicious code at the perimeter, then again at the application level, now it has added an OS firewall. When you think about it, this alone should stave off many virus and spyware attacks. Even so, ZoneAlarm then added a signature-based spyware scanner. So with this new edition, you're more than protected; you're thoroughly shielded.

Verdict
For the last couple of weeks, I have been playing around with the beta version of ZoneAlarm Internet Security 6.0 on several machines of various vintages. I haven't noticed any computer slowdowns, even on a trusty old laptop still running Windows 98 SE. Where Norton Internet Security 2005 ground my laptop to a halt every time I attempted to send and receive e-mail or scan for viruses, I have had no such trouble with ZoneAlarm. Some people may not like the numerous notifications from ZoneAlarm whenever it updates antivirus and antispyware signature files, but I like the confirmation. With Norton, I have no idea when it updates or whether a given update was even successful without pulling up the interface and checking. With Norton, I see a dialog box only whenever my subscription comes due, which seems all too often.

Are security software companies really keeping up with the times, or are they just repackaging themselves? Talk back to me.