Filtering mode and anti spam queries

Hi,

I am running ESET Smart Security 5 at the moment on one of my PCs just to get a feel of it before purchasing the licenses.

First of all, I must say I'm all impressed with the software given the low memory consumption, less interruption on the system performance while performing the disk scan, etc.

However, I'd like to ask a couple of questions:
1. regarding the filtering mode for firewall. I think by default, it's set to Automatic mode. The way I understand it is it should automatically allow local installed programs to run after the installation but it did not. It blocked a number of programs from running so I had to change the filtering mode to Interactive mode so that I could manually click it to accept when prompted by a pop-up dialog box from ESET.

I was thinking if I could add those programs manually to the ESET firewall, then I would not have to be on the computer waiting for any pop-up dialog box prompting to click yes to accept.

2. Anti-spam
I host my own mail server which has been installed with anti-spam software to filter out the spam for our emails.
If I go disable the antispam protection and email client protection, would this affect the operation of the ESET software.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

Hello,

In response to your questions:

1. I would guess that some of the programs you were running created some kind of network traffic that was not covered by the rules that are generated automatically by ESET Smart Security. Possibly some kind of program which interacts with the network stack at a low-level, but it could also be a multiplayer game that modifies or encapsulates some network traffic like a VPN, etc.
2. Disabling anti-spam protection means that ESET Smart Security will not check your email for spam. Disabling email client protection means that ESET Smart Security will not check your email for malicious software. While mass-mailing worms and the like are not as common as they once were, there are still malicious attachments being sent out, as noted in this ESET Threat Blog post from a month ago.

I would suggest that you try using ESET Smart Security with the mail-related options enabled for a while and see if the overhead is an issue. If it is, disable it. Otherwise, you can leave it enabled and benefit from the additional layer of protection.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky