Online Armor 2 - Public Preview release

How does it compare to Comodo? Is it lighter than comodo?

 

Ciderman 77 wrote:

I have used Comodo and my feeling is that OA is lighter. OA has 2 tasks running: oaui.exe which is currently using 8,192 KB and oasrv.exe at 8.240 KB, after about 4 hours. These can vary up to +/- 1 MB depending on what is going on at the moment. The firewall does not have a separate task, so those values are for OA plus the firewall. I would call that very respectable, considering what you get.

Niether OA + firewall or Comodo slowed down my computer OR my surfing at all. Download speeds with both were at full capacity.

Personally, I prefer the firewall in OA. It has to be the easiest firewall to configure that I have used, and I have used quite a few. For the novice it is very easy to understand and setup. For those who like to configure things down to the smallest details, then OA will probably satisfy as well (at least as far as you can satisfy this particular group ).

 

Is there any student prices or other promotions code to buy Online Armor/Online Armor AV+?

-MikeNAS

 

Thanks for the advice. Just one more question, how good is OA inbound protection?

 

Not at the moment, no.

 

OA works a bit different to other firewalls. We also get a "Stealth" rating over at SheildsUP if such things appeal to you.

By default, all connections are blocked in both directions. In Standard mode, trusted applications (on the OA Whitelist) gain internet access automatically (you can turn that behavior off if you like) without having to set up rules.

So, for example, if you run a chat program - you just choose to allow it, and it will gain the access (inbound or outbound) that it needs.

You can also specify the "restricted port list" - simply this is a list of ports that if requested, should not be granted internet access.

Lastly - you can filter ports by IP range or country. My favorite example is this:

Setup VNC or remote desktop on your PC.
Place a restriction on the port that says "Only X.X.X.X can access it" where X.X.x.X is the address of your office computer.

You can nicely access from your office, but it's not available to anyone else.

 

Thanks for that Mike. It appeals to me that OA gets stealth rating from the SheildsUp, but i is not everything i look for in a security program. I am average computer user so i dont do much configurating. So i need something which is easy to set up. OA firewall sounds like it is easy to set up and use. I am not familiar with restricted port list configurations, so do i need to do anything with it or can i just leave as it is by default?

Kristian

 

I'm really looking forward to independent testing and reviews from various firewall testers and web-sites on the OA firewall....

as well as from our own Stem, of course

 

To stapp, thanks for your comment. You convinced me to give the OA firewall a go. I am going to try it out soon, I am bit busy at the moment. What you said about using OA firewall is exactly what i look for in a firewall. Sometimes Comodo can drive you nuts with its pop ups.

Kristian

 

Same here aswell.

 

Its hidden in standard mode - you would not need to mess with it.

 

Once it goes gold, this will be happening.

 

Hello everyone,

I have been beta testing OA+FW, used numerous FW's and I could never get the port and rule thing, with OA+FW you don't have too worry about that. It is the most simplistic FW I have honestly ever used, at the same time if you want to go advanced you can. It comes in both flavors. I think the added bonus to OA is the stellar support you get for this product, too me that's very important. And don't forget, OA detects "Active X" with added capabilities of keyloggers. It protects your host file, filters spoof messages from your email, and the web shield has support for Opera amongst many others.

It has banking mode to do transactions safely. The file system scan will scan for virus etc after you install. So there is more here than meets the eye and OA is only going to get better.



@Ciderman

Glad to see you will give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

The security programs I have run at different points in time with OA+FW is:

Kav 6.0.2.614
Super Antispyware Pro (on demand)
BOClean
SSM
Regdefend
AppDefend
GesWall Pro

Pete mentioned some folks may run into a issue with Kav. I think it depends on ones system because I run Kav 6.0.2.614 with all modules active and it runs fine. It's when I first install OA the modules sometimes may fail to start. All I have to do is shutdown Kav and then OA and restart Kav first, then OA and it's fine from there on. There are no problems with scanning etc.

A few folks have made comments comparing OA+FW and Comodo.

From my experience OA+FW is lighter and easier to use.

All I can say is if you don't try it "you don't know what your missing"! It truley is the most simplistic FW you could ever use.

 

Thanks everybody for your comments. I have now started using OA firewall. So far everything is ok. Firefox and IE opens quicker than with comodo. Like you said it was easy to set up and ireally like the firewall status window.

Kristian

 

Good to hear, Kristian! OA+FW is truley the easiest FW you will find and you can't beat the kernel level of protection it gives. Mike set out to design something easy to use and I think he achieved that goal and OA is only to get better.

 

Any opinions for that AV part? Should I buy OA + NOD32 or OA AV+? Which one is best option? Total price is in both cases allmost same.

-MikeNAS

 

From what I have gathered the AV used in the AV+ version is Kaspersky, so it looks like the classical choice: NOD or KAV...

 

OA AV+ uses the Kaspersky AV engine and OA's AV scanner is used when launching processes. Currently, the user cannot change the AV scanner's settings for fine tuning. Personally I will go with OA + NOD32 to have realtime+background scanning, hidden files scanning, email scanning, etc. abilities from NOD32. OA 2.0's firewall and HIPS features are very good IMHO and will complement NOD32 well.

 

yup thats part of blackspear's setup nod32+online armour plus a third party firewall but he said he would use the firewall in eiether the nod32 secuirty suite or the firewall in online armour once version2 comes out
lodore

 

Just tried the trial beta on 2003 Server SP2. Got this error at start:

Access violation at address 77E637E2 in module 'kernel32.dll'. Read of address 00000208

 

Thanks Espresso - we haven't tested on 2003 server - will do so and correct this.


Mike

 

In relation to OA's firewall.

I would class myself a beginner in software firewalls (I've only ever previously used ZA...I tried a few other software firewalls over the years, but uninstalled them immediately after installing, based on their confusing GUI's).

For beginners, OA offers a fantastic firewall...it allows autoconfiguration of files that are in OA's trusted list...meaning there's less configuration to do than for any other firewall (that I know of). There will be some who would not like this feature (because they want to configure everything themselves), but for me, this is the one particular feature that I like more than any other.

Of course for those that do want to do all the configuration themselves, you can easily switch to advanced mode (as I'm no guru on that, I wouldn't be able to offer a knowledgable opinion on the advanced features).

 

Is it stable or beta version ?

I am using OA 1, but I am looking for OA with FW

waiting for response ....