K9 Web Protection- Compatibility!

Hi,

I just wonder if it would conflict with other web filters like dns services or add-ons(wot, trafficlight) or Security Suite built-on web filters.

Because it says here, 'While some product suites include Web filtering, these filters may not be as robust or detailed as Blue Coat’s technology. We recommend that you use K9 instead of the Web filter you find in a product suite, unless it’s based on Blue Coat’s K9 technology.'

Also because it says here, 'K9 Web Protection is compatible with the following third-party personal firewall and Internet security products:

Personal firewalls: Comodo
Anti-virus products: Avast, Avira
Internet security suites: McAfee, F-Secure, Norton/Symantec, Computer Associates and Check Point ZoneAlarm'

Which means other products suites are not compatible, right?

 

Or it could mean other products are not tested as either compatible or not compatible

 

FWIW, for the last 3 years, I have been using K9 along with WOT, Google DNS and Google Chrome's built-in malware filter, with zero interference.

 

My experience is that since Google introduced download file reputation checking, it us using all available sources (and its own) to feed the phising and anti-malware mechanisme with blacklisted sites/downloads.

K9 needs the consumers to feed the black list mechanism, 3.4 million homes is nothing compared to number of Google search users, Microsoft IE users, AVG free and Avast free users. The internet is a numbers game, that is why I ask

Have you seen K9 pop-up occasionally?

 

What about Firefox? I mean does it fall in the same line as ones you mentioned? I'm using Firefox.

 

Yeah that could. But then again it's the same thing that we wouldn't know if it's compatible if other products have not been tested yet, right?

 

Sorry, no for FF, so you are stil on XP (because you are using FF, problably with some security extensions like NoScript)?

 

Aww? That's unfortunate. Yes I'm using FF on my XP and Chrome on 2 of my pcs and IE 9 on the 4th one.

I'm using NoScript, Adblock Plus, HTTPS Everywhere, HTTPS Finder, WOT and betterprivacy. Also using Norton DNS. I was wondering if I could add another filter like K9 since it is free. Hence the compatibility question.

 

I use it on Win.7 x86 with F.F. with Adblock Plus and Ghostry. No slow downs and no trouble with compatibility. And I have seen it working.

 

Thank you very much for the confirmation.

Now I want to use it on all my pcs. So will it play nice with AVs like Emsisoft Antimalware, firewalls like Online Armour, MBAM or add-ons like WOT? Because they all have web filters of their own.

 

I used it with ad muncher and noticed a performance hit so I uninstalled. It looks like a nice program though and I even got an email notice that the program had been uninstalled.

 

I only use DefenseWall Personal Firewall and I never felt I needed another web filter when using K9 Web Protection. I am on a real slow connection, if it made it much worse I'd be stopped.

 

I'm a little hesitant about using K9 Web Protection after reading these comments/reviews.

 

I tried K9 (latest version) yesterday along with panda cloud (no panda web filter). Works smooth and no connectivity issues. In the settings do not select the upgrade to beta option as it may lead to stability issues. In the past I have used k9 with norton and kaspersky. Though there were no issues, the connection became slow and I didn't know that exclusions should be set for k9 in the av settings. Anyway k9 works fine with a security software which does not have its own firewall or webfilter. k9 can be combined with bitdefender trafficlight plugin version for firefox

 

Did you test if panda filter works at the same time when K9 is present by visiting http://www.cloudantivirus.com/testurlfilter/ ? Also K9 works fine with a security sofware which does not have it's own firewall or webfilter but my original question and concern was if it could be used with software and add-ons which already have web filter built-in. Like if K9 could be used with Norton DNS,WOT, Emsisoft Antimalware, Online Armour, MBAM PRO and Spywareblaster. They all have some sort of web filter.

 

The Antivirus baseline for reference purpose only
AntiVirus developers share to some degree the results of their honeypots/webcrawlers/user triggered analysis. Simply because it is to expensive to setup a infrastructure for single use.

Intelligence at AntiVirus is at providing other means (behavioral analysis, heuristics, code emulation/sandboxing, ect) of identifying malware. Depending on these advanced mechanisms an AV has somewhere between 2 to 6 million fingerprints in its blacklist data base (smaller is better IMO

IP blacklist feeding frenzy
For websites there are some common exploits and intrusion techniques which can be determined at visits, but most of the protection power comes from 'raw' IP blacklists.

Some researchers claim that are nearly 700 websites for every person on earth, so the IPv4 standard which facilitates 4294967296 addresses nears its end of life cycle. So set this nearly 5 billion IP addresses against the average unique fingerprints an AV has (say 4 million) and the magnitude of the IP black list challenge becomes clear.


My 2 cents
For malware fighters, DNS networks and AV-companiers this magnitude is the force behind sharing and making publicly available (e.g. malware domain list) and sharing the KNOWN bad IP's. So it is my guess than the source of these blacklist is shared among providers, so having more simply means more overlap of the blacklisted IP's.

This is all grey box reasoning, so I could very well be wrong, but it is my 2 cents that with Norton DNS and Google's phising protection allready on board, there is not much security gained by adding K9, Panda's blacklist, Bitdefender Traffic Light, Linkscanner and or Mcfee SiteAdvisor.

 

Ah! Thank you for clearly explaining this Kees. I now understand.

What do you think of this : Norton DNS, WOT, MBAM IP Blocking, EAM surf protection, OA web filter, Firefox built-in phishing protection? How much overlap? Or is my security greatly increased?

 

you have that all

I would opt for three max:
a) the dns network, so add Norton DNS to router or network device, its primary finction is convert names to IP addresses, so it is very close the the core function IMO
b) the software firewall, it scans the traffic allready, so it is problably the best spot to add some IP blacklist protection (so OA webfilter's)
c) the browser, its primary function is to convert protocols and scripts to content on webpages, so it would be my next prefered spot (so FF build in phising).

 

Web filter wise, is it better to use Firefox or Google Chrome? Also is MBAM IP Block of any use? Is the blacklist good enough?

 

No idea, do some testing with malware domain, see AKO's security freeware list on Gizmo's for other testing stuff, see 23.23. Malware samples and hostile sites:

 

I don't do testing you see. I leave that to you guys. LOL.