AppGuard 4.x 32/64 Bit - Releases

That may be the same bug I sent Barb an email about. When I see something related to Windows 10 I usually send her an email requesting that she take a look at the post. They may be having a hard time reproducing it.

 

BRN focus on corporate solutions , so we shouldn't expect too much

 

My understanding is we are also a test bed for the corporate products since they use the same core components with added features for administrators. I'm not sure what other differences there may be in the corporate products. "Good" beta tester are valuable to the company to identify bugs, and get good feedback. Several years ago BRN modeled some of the AG features based on the feedback they received from beta testers here at Wilders. We will just have to wait, and see how development goes in the near feature. It still works well for me, but there are some great security enhancements that could be made.

 

BRN is very small team.

Their focus, of course, will be on products that generate the most income. Cannot criticize BRN in that regard.

However, AppGuard has not been further improved and refined for a number of years now. Quite a long time, in fact. Lots of users complain about the interface, the logging, the user manual, etc.

The protection is great, but the user interface could be improved to make configuration much easier and also make more clear what is happening on system (e.g. the PID issue).

Can't even get BRN to add a minimize feature for open AG windows so user doesn't have to continually move them around when working with AG.

A few things would make AG much more user-friendly.

Any how, the bottom line is that AG has relatively few users; AG will never be main-stream. So maybe this drives BRN's on-going neglect of AG usability...

I too sent suggestions. Never any replies.

Me personally, I would not be surprised at all if BRN discontinues a home user version of AG in the future.

I can't imagine that BRN earns any significant amount of income from AG home users...

 

I think discontinuing a Home User version would be a big mistake. They need feedback from beta testers that know what they are doing. I don't think serious companies would be interested in running beta software on their networks. I think it would cost them a considerable amount of money to do all the testing on their own so it may be cheaper to offer a home version. They get free testers, and also some income from the product. Barb made it clear to me that they are interested in the consumer market in the recent past; I don't know if anything has changed.

There are a few things I would like to see changed in the GUI, but not many. I want to see updates in functionality. I use to get replies when making recommendations, but not lately. I will send them anyways. They can take some of my suggestions, or they can choose not to of course. I just hope they are reading them.

 

Don't discontinue the home version please... I am just getting used to a system based on privileges, policies and .ini files...

 

Just to be clear BRN has never said they might discontinue the home version that i'm aware of. Hjlbx only said that because he's aware that their business probably depends on revenue generated by the corporate market more than the consumer market. Many of us have always thought this to be the case. We definitely don't want to see the consumer version discontinued though!

 

Has anyone every tried using AG with BufferZone Pro? They seem to be incompatible. I have tried making every executable in BufferZone Pro's Program Files Folder Power Apps, but they still will not work together. AppGuard has all kinds of blocked entries from BufferZone Pro in the Activity Report.

 

BufferZone Pro has long since been discontinued as a home user product; it is Enterprise-only. I even tried to purchase the Enterprise BufferZone, but once they realized that I was a home user they said no consumer sales.

I tried the most recently released BufferZone Pro "Home" version - which is a few years old - and it did not function on W8.1.

 

The build of Bufferzone Pro I installed was the last build available from 2014. I really like the way the GUI is designed. It makes using the application really easy. It's a shame the home version is no longer developed. If it's not compatible with AG I will not be using it though.

 

AppGuard is blocking functionality to Bouncer's Admin Tool. I end up making Admin Tool.exe, Bouncertray.exe, and WindowsArchitecture.exe powerapps to be safe. Bouncer can be ran without the Admin Tool, but I thought I would give others a heads up. Sometimes AppGuard blocks Bouncer from writing to the registry without the Admin Tool running. It's strange that it does that because I thought AppGuard is only suppose to block Guarded Apps from writing to the registry. Maybe it blocks some registry keys from being written to regardless of the source. It concerns me though that AG is blocking some registry writes from Bouncer's KMD. It doesn't happen often, but I have seen it. It didn't seem to cause any problems for Bouncer though. I have been using them together for about 5 months. I will have to post it the next time AG blocks Bouncer's KMD from writing to the registry.

 

In my opinion, some of your screenshots can be explained easily. Please note that:

• CMD.exe is in the Guarded Application list.
• Guarded Application cannot access the protected registry items.
• Some of your screenshots suggest that Bouncer is invoking CMD.exe to write to the registry.

So, in bouncer1.jpg and bouncer3.jpg, it is not Bouncer being blocked. It is just CMD.exe being restricted by AppGuard. This is not a bug, I think.

For any executable file (for example, A.exe), if you add it into the PowerApps, then any process launched by A.exe will not be guarded, even if it is in the user space.
I think this also applies to the programs in the Guarded Application list, including CMD.exe.

So, I think at least CMD.exe will no longer be blocked from writing to the registries as long as it is called by the Bouncer programs, since you have added the Bouncer programs to the PowerApps.

But, in bouncer2.jpg, there is a "anonymous" process trying to write to the registry. It seems not to have a name. Do you know what it is?

 

does anyone knows where i can export my appguard's config?

 

You can find your config in:

C:\Users\******(your useranme)\AppData\Roaming\blue ridge networks\appguard\appguardpolicy.xml

Some elements in this XML file are easy to understand. For example, <bDisableLaunch>false</bDisableLaunch> means not allowing to be executed.

 

thanks. quite complicated way where a simple UI button would suffice ^^

 

Actually you need two files one already mentioned by @Online_Sword and the other one:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/appguard-3-x-32-64-bit.294876/page-79#post-2163749

I suggest to read carefully the second paragraph for restoring or re-inserting those files back again...

 

There's also a registry entry including the parental/administrative control settings and other misc stuff not stored in the xml. It's at HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Blue Ridge Networks\AppGuard on a x64 system, just take out the wow6432node for 32 bit systems. If you haven't set that up then no need to export or back it up.

 

Then AppGuard lacks of an appropriate export/import settings function, definitely an item to add to the to-do list at BRN. But it seems they won't just a disturbing silence at their end.

 

We are fortunate to have a *somewhat user-friendly* version of what is fundamentally a security program meant for commercial users with professional Techs to handle their cyber-stuff.

I totally depend on this Wilders thread to be my Tech Support for AG. It has never yet let me down.

P.S. As to AG's lack of export/import function, my solution for ALL such potential issues is to frequently image my system drive. IMHO a good & simple imaging program is the singularly most important security app.

 

Nice mention on the system backup... I've also included a folder with files that are updated on-the-fly; such as softwarepolicy.ini, AdGuards User Filter List, Browser bookmarks, addon filter lists, Acryclic DNS Proxy config and hosts files, etc... this way, if I know I haven't uninstalled or installed an app between backups, I can revisit a .ini or a .txt file...

It all comes down to whether you want to own your PC or own all your installed apps; if the 2nd one... good luck getting companies to jump.

 

Yes, you are right. I overlooked CMD. It should block Bouncer from writing to the registry since it is using CMD which is guarded. I should have only posted the middle image. The middle image only gives a process ID. The user needs more information than a process ID. Process ID's are pretty much useless because you usually can't find any process with the same ID after the event has occurred so you don't know what the source is.

 

The AppGuard thread has gotten too quiet. It would be great news to hear about a new beta test phase. We can only hope.

 

Yes, it does it's thing well, but there's plenty of room for improvement.

 

I fully agree, however I think there's a need for improvement, it's not just optional anymore. Instead a disturbing silence from BRN.