News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members

Windows Firewall Control - Mini Review

<< < (3/5) > >>

Babis:
4wd & highend01 thanks for the explanations.

I am testing it since Tuesday and luckily I found the mini review.

From what I understand so far, it seems a nice addition to the windows 7 firewall with the only downside (for me) is that doesn't inform you in real time that an application tries to obtain network access so that you may allow or deny it. You have to do it manually. Can you confirm that 4wd? Thanks.

4wd:
From what I understand so far, it seems a nice addition to the windows 7 firewall with the only downside (for me) is that doesn't inform you in real time that an application tries to obtain network access so that you may allow or deny it. You have to do it manually. Can you confirm that 4wd?-Babis (May 30, 2012, 04:15 AM)
--- End quote ---

That's correct - you need to donate to get that feature.

Tuxman:
Now we still wonder why anyone would want to use a "personal firewall".  :P

IainB:
@4wd: Thanks for spotting the version number error in my above post. I have corrected it.
I am still running W7FC (FREE) with the latest version of WFC, and the latter is unobtrusive and not too complicated, and I can confirm no apparent conflicts (which is what you had supposed).
I think there must have been something buggy about the older version that I had installed.

At the moment, my ignorance of the product and firewalls in general leaves me wondering why I might need WFC though.
I can see the need for me to use W7FC - which is why I use it - and I have trialled the PAID version as well, but found it a bit too complicated to use.
"Complicated" here means that I need to think carefully before taking any actions using the tool, to make sure that I understand what rule-changes will be effected by my confirming any instructions to the tool, and the implications of those changes.
To have to do this on-the-fly because of pop-up prompts from the tool is a real distraction from what I am concentrating on doing, and thus likely to be conducive to mistakes made in haste.

WFC does not seem to be obtrusive or "complicated" in this regard.

IainB:
EDIT 2015-06-20 0018hrs: This is not a comment about WFC (Windows Firewall Control) but about WFN (Windows Firewall Notifier). The two are not the same sort of thing.
______________________

I made a comment in this thread that included reference to WFN (Windows Firewall Notifier): Re: Windows Firewall Control - Mini Review, where I wrote:
4. Windows Firewall Notifier: Not a firewall control per se, but a useful notification tool. Probably a bit complicated to use for many users (more options/decisions to take). In use is annoying as heck and does not seem to be very intuitive. Uninstalls relatively easily via brute force.
_________________________

--- End quote ---

I tried the latest version of WFN out yesterday, had some significant problems and thought I should post a comment here as a follow-up warning from my earlier comment, and just to close the loop.

My notes:
I'd suggest people be very careful with this one. Potentially nothing but trouble unless you use a sandbox, just-in-case. Otherwise, it could be a real time bandit to get things fixed afterwards.

When WFN started up, a veritable nightmare instantly ensued.
The laptop simply froze. After a long delay I was able to get Task Manager to start and display the processes in operation, so that I could see what was going on (OS is Win8.1-64 PRO). The Task Manager display showed that WFN had gone mad - the display was awash with notifier.exe instances, which were being spawned at a helluva rate and all the instances were hogging CPU and memory. The laptop was fully occupied with WFN processes. I pressed the OFF switch.
On rebooting the laptop, WFN proceeded to start up and repeat the spawning of notifier.exe. The laptop was unusable.
To fix things was time-consuming. I took out the hard drive and inserted it into a portable USB carrier. Using another laptop, I then ran the virus and Malwarebytes checkers on that drive (since the behaviour of WFN seemed to mimic the behaviour of a hijack virus).
No virus/malware was detected, so I expunged the WFN directory and reinstalled the drive back into it's laptop and rebooted. The laptop functioned, but anything that was using the Firewall would no longer work.
On inspection, I saw that several of the Windows Defender Firewall rules had been trashed/scrambled. I spent a couple of hours tediously manually checking, rebuilding and testing all the incoming/outgoing rules. I still can't get MS OneNote to sync to OneDrive. Yet the firewall rules look OK, now, so I must be making a mistake somewhere. Sheesh.

What's the explanation? I figured that WFN maybe could have been a deliberate virus mimic, or possibly a stupid prank by the author, perhaps in aggrieved retaliation for the criticisms of some users that he referred to in annoyed fashion. He says: "Before you go on and start whining about issues, this is an ALPHA version, meaning it's NOT finished yet and is only there because I don't want you to wait any longer before being able to give it a try.".
I have no idea why people might do that - i.e., if it were (say) a prank - but I certainly I didn't see that I or any other programmer would release an Alpha version in such a dodgy and inelegant state. Entirely my own fault, really. I mean, the author does call it an Alpha version, and for good reason, apparently.
We can all learn from this. If I ever decide to try WFN out again, I'll not take any risks, but will use a sandbox, and I recommend others do likewise, rather than just avoid the software. I'm sure it will be improved. It looked like it should be pretty good/useful - by design, at any rate - and that map idea, for example, is rather innovative. I'd like to get to use it and try it out.
Once bitten, twice shy though.
__________________________________________

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page