Jetico Personal Firewall 1.0.1.58 Connection Troubles

the pop up issues in jetico are just unreal. i have never been asked by any program for as much as jetico. probably every firewall i have ever tested combined hasn't asked me for as much as jetico. this besides many bugs and problems made me not look back.

 

To me, personal firewall software is by far the most problematic software around. I've tried just about every one available, and hated things about them all. Just as a door lock that keeps you from entering your own house has failed, or a safety device that makes your car crash has failed, so has security software that kills your connection, or makes your system crash. It's ludicrous.

I've never suffered at the hands of malware, but I've spent hours and hours and hours dealing with utter, intolerable nonsense and incredible frustration caused by software that was billed as the solver of my problems.

What a joke. And people wonder why I question it.

 

The solution to the changed app situation is very simple and Jetico should have incorporated this ages ago like very other firewall. All they need to do is ask if it's ok since it changed, and then update the hash value in the app rule. Why they didn't do it this way is beyond me. I've mentioned it to them a few times and they promise it's on their to-do list, but I have yet to see it appear in a new release. Maybe some day...

 

No, but I could not resist the urge...

 

Exactly. I wish I had a dollar for every time that wasted my time. I'd either install an update to an application, and then have to remember to go into JPF, find the rule(s) (and very often, there were several applicable rules), double click each one, put the cursor on the path to the EXE, and click OK twice (yes, twice). Or, I'd forget to do that (or miss something), then I'd get an alert, and then I'd have to go in and not only update all the old rules, but clean up the new, useless one(s). What a waste of time.

 

The way to deal with the changed application problem in Jetico is to set up tables for nearly everything. When the app changes all you have to do is one new rule that calls the table.

A table that allows an app to connect out only to port 80 will do the trick for a lot of apps that update signature files or check cddb.

However, they should fix that, but probably will not until it goes commercial.

 

I know, I know... And I had as many tables defined in JPF as I could stand to. But the problem remains! Update an EXE, deal with rules. And a lot of the time, when I'd install an update, it would alter multiple EXEs, which exponentially increased my pain-in-the-ass factor.

 

Funny, Sygate and Kerio handles the changed DLL and exe issue quite well without managing to be obrusive like Jetico. Maybe Jetico needs to look into that angle.

 

As far as I know, Jetico is the only one that doesn't handle a changed program properly. It's a little ridiculous actually.. creating a new rule for a changed program just means more cleanup later. A real hassle... They need to fix it.