but I do think they should be careful enough with their updates to not change something so drastically as to cause results such as this.
You're blind to the fact it's pretty specific to ZoneAlarm because their product is both the cause and effect.
company that's charging so much for their operating system
Steve Jobs will sell you the "iWheel" for your eternal soul. If your lucky he'll even let you suck him off.
I can't. I go to school, and therefore I'm forced to buy software for Windows that barely runs on my machines because of the minimum requirements, and have no say in it because for some reason, they all use Windows in their offices too. Wanna know why? They don't even know that PCs have more than Windows to use in the first place. I know, I've seen the Mac lab. People actually think that if you run a PC you have to run Windows and that nothing else will run on it even though my laptop has Linux and XP on it, they think I just found a theme for XP to make it look like Windowmaker.
No. They just don't particularly like you. But they take alot of enjoyment out of watching you squirm each time a simple computer related task is needed. And they laugh behind your back each time you turn red-faced and slam your keyboard around.

The best part is when you put the mouse to your face like a microphone and yell, "stupid compoutar! Why won't j00 workz?!"