I was surprised to learn that Avira no longer has a firewall. However it shows up well in the AVC tests. Was it wise to discontinue their own firewall and depend on Windows Firewall? In the past the W firewall seemed to have a good reputation. Thanks, Jerry
2. Why do the products not include Avira FireWall anymore? http://www.avira.com/en/support-for-home-knowledgebase-detail/kbid/1623
Only Avira Pro has a firewall, windows firewall 8/10 is as good as any other firewall as far as I know all the firewalls in AV's use windows firewall as a base. AVC test are about malware so if does't matter if the product has a firewall or not.
Thanks, I had thought, as a result of reading on line info, that Pro did not have a firewall. Something I saw indicated that when installing Avira did not automatically install the firewall, but that one had to make a change in settings. http://www.avira.com/en/support-for-business-knowledgebase-detail/kbid/1390 Regards, Jerry
The article (KBID 1390) says: "Last updated: Thursday, March 7, 2013" and refers to Avira Professional Security, a product which not exist anymore. ---------------------------------- http://www.avira.com/en/avira-antivirus-pro Avira Antivirus Pro Feature Set -> Online Protection: ----------------------------- http://img.creativemark.co.uk/uploads/images/539/16539/img3File.png
no. plenty of products still provide a firewall frontend that interfaces w/WFP on newer versions of windows.
Bitdefender's firewall also works on windows filtering platform using base filtering service, just like windows firewall. (up and above Win 7) Code: http://www.bitdefender.com/support/Cannot-activate-Bitdefender-Firewall-1536.html
There is a nice free firewall control from Sphinx-Soft that also uses the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP). Check out Windows 10 Firewall Control (for Vista, 7, 8, 10). http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/index.html The decision to use the built-in filtering platform is sound because you don't need any 3rd party kernel drivers installed to make it work. This potentially reduces the risk of security flaws in 3rd party firewall software development. Plus it is light and adds no performance hit because Windows 10 Firewall Control is just a user friendly front-end to WFP. The base firewall GUI in Windows is cumbersome and makes a 3rd party GUI desirable. I use Windows 10 Firewall Control and Avira recognizes that the Windows firewall is active, (but launches the Windows GUI under it's settings). So I use the Windows 10 Firewall Control GUI for easy setting of [incoming only/outgoing only/enable all] permissions on an application basis. The free version allows all Windows services by default, but I have no issues with that. It has an event log and a connections page that shows the status of all current network connections. It alerts on any new connection attempts until you "train" it, then it quiets down until you install something new. They have paid (one-time) versions that allow more detailed control.