Is Bitdefender Family Pack compatible with Check Point ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware?

Knee_Deep_in_Malware

Is Bitdefender Family Pack compatible with Check Point ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware, or should I uninstall ZoneAlarm before installing the Family pack?

Currently I have Bitdender Free Anti-Virus and Check Point ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware installed and they work fine together, but I recently got Bitdefender Family Pack, and I know that includes anti-ransomware so before I upgrade Bitdefneder I need to know if I should uninstall ZoneAlarm first. Just to be clear, ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware does not include ZoneAlarm's antivirus or any other protection, it is just anti-ransomware.

Under ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware compatibility requirements, they claim:

ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware is compatible with all other antivirus, firewall and PC security software.

And from the research I've done online it seems like ZoneAlarm works a bit different than other anti-ransomware software. But I am no expert.

ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware is a paid product (annual fee) and I have a lot of time left before my next renewal, and also I've been really happy with it, so I'd like to keep using it if it doesn't conflict at least until the end of my current license.

Thanks!

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/83637/is-bitdefender-family-pack-compatible-with-check-point-zonealarm-anti-ransomware

Hi Member,

Compatibility of one product cannot be addressed with other since all system have different specifications. At the end, you will have to try it yourself and check if both of them are compatible by simply installing them both on your PC which is not recommended since bitdefender already has a ransomware protection feature that works better than zonealarm.

Zonealarm does not has its own malware database and it utilizes the malware database of kaspersky. Hence you will be conflicting malware database of two vendors (bitdefender & kaspersky) with each other.

Some companies do write in some cases that their product is compatible with other vendors since they have to promote their product. But sometimes two product do tend to work with each other but the compatibility check has to be done by user at his own end.

Regards

Flex

(Bitdefender beta tester 2019/ 2020)

Knee_Deep_in_Malware

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/299198#Comment_299198

Thanks for the reply!

Do you know if the anti-ransomeware part of Bitdefender Family Pack, can be turned off? (Thus preventing any conflict)

Zonealarm does not has its own malware database and it utilizes the malware database of kaspersky. Hence you will be conflicting malware database of two vendors (bitdefender & kaspersky) with each other.

Do you have a source for this? I don't think Zonealarm anti-ransomeware works like that. This sounds like how Zonealarm anti-virus works, but I don't have Zonealarm AV installed, just their anti-ransomeware protection.

Knee_Deep_in_Malware

Following up in case anyone else has the same question...

So I tried it with both, it did not go well.

A few things to clarify:
1) Zonealarm anti-ransomeware is different than ZoneAlarm anti-virus. It is only an anti-ransomware, and their website still claims it "is compatible with all other antivirus, firewall and PC security software."

2) As far as I can tell, Bitdefender family pack is the same as Bitdefender Total Security, just with more licenses.

3) In Bitdefender family pack/total security, you can disable anti-ransomware.

So I had both bitdefender and Zonealarm anti-ransomware installed, with Bitdefender's anti-ransomware disabled. Unfortunately, despite ZoneAlarm's claim that it can work alongside antivirus software, this did not seem to be the case. My computer would occasionally get very slow and both services in Windows Task Manger would be taking up a lot of resources, which is a classic sign of anti-malware software fighting each other. I also noticed that Bitdefender had quarantined some ZoneAlarm files, and ZoneAlarm had quarantined some Bitdefender files. I tried adding ZoneAlarm files to the Bitdefender exception list but that didn't seem to make much of a difference (the Bitdefender exception list does seem to be buggy and often tries to scan files/folders that were on it anyway, but that's a different issue)

I uninstalled ZoneAlarm and my computer is back to normal speed and everything is working well.

Possibly Bitdefender is not fully disabling it's anti-ransomware feature when asked to and/or ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware is not actually compatible alongside other AV software like they claim. Either way, I don't recommend having both installed on your computer. Which is a shame, because despite what the poster above me says, ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware is really good and consistently ranks among the best Anti-Ransomware software in both lab and real world tests, and usually beats Bitdefender's anti-ransomware.