Zone Labs is busy readying its 5.0 product series. ZoneAlarm Pro, a popular firewall utility, and ZoneAlarm Security Suite, a new addition to the Zone Labs stable, are currently entering into the final lap of their respective beta cycles. Both betas have open enrollment and are available as free downloads from the Zone Labs Web site.

ZoneAlarm Pro is the deluxe boxed version of Zone Lab's standard firewall, offering added protection against worms, trojans, spyware, and malicious e-mail attachments. Zone Alarm Pro extends its sphere of protection into the Web browser by managing cookies and blocking unwanted ads.

The new beta adds three main features: AlertAdvisor, Antivirus Monitoring and Alert Viewer.  AlertAdvisor provides users with automatic program policy recommendations while Alert Viewer organizes log details into categories.  In addition, ZoneAlarm will now monitor third-party antivirus engines and definition files for Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Computer Associates products.

Zone Lab's ZoneAlarm Security Suite includes many of these same updates, but offers some extended functionality of its own. Rather than monitor systems for third-party software, Security Suite has its own signature and heuristic based antivirus protection.  The suite also filters out incoming instant messaging traffic for content, scripts and files.

Lastly, Security Suite plays the role of big brother and blocks Web content deemed offensive by the user. To usher users along, Zone Labs has provided 34 preset categories.

A Zone Labs spokesperson denied an opportunity to discuss the releases, simply stating, "We will not be discussing any additional details during the beta period."

To view a list of known issues visit the beta documentation Web site. Downloads are offered through the Zone Labs beta program.