Are you using the free version or the Pro? I upgraded to the trial version (30 days) of Pro and all my issues seemed to go away. Of course, it's actually a poor test as at the same time I reinstalled my ethernet card for my home network, so I'm unsure what fixed what. It seems to be working pretty well right now and the Pro version has a lot more tweakability than the free one. As far as I can tell, it really does keep everything out that should be kept out.

>One reason for using ZoneAlarm was it protects you from incomming and outgoing unwanted traffic. Well, that was the theory and it seemed to work until a few months ago. Perhaps it works too well now - it stops all Internet traffic! That is a great way to prevent garbage from the Internet from getting into your computer! :)