PC Tools Firewall 3.0.0.60

I thought that when trojans and malware can disable a firewall,they can then get access to outside and do damage.

Yea,I know they have to get in first,but surely this isnt helping, no matter what.

Disabling this one is nothing complicated-just run TaskManager,then go to Services and disable that.

Unless I am overlooking something,but nothing else relevant seemed to be still running

 

It is normal that using admin priviledges, I was able to disable the driver. What bothered me is that the firewall showed no reaction, like nothing happened. What if for some reason that driver is unable to start? In that case the firewall will not signal me in a visible way that a problem occured.

I know, this was just a simple test to see if there is a slowdown. I will try to install it on a different computer and rerun the tests.

 

I have not experienced, nor read about, any problems with LnS and LUA in XP or Vista, maybe you can direct me to such post? I guess that is just one of those things that falls into the law that says that no software works in every configuration there is.

As for PC-tools, it is easier to understand than LnS. I tried it for a while couple of builds ago and liked it. The only problem on my machine was that the main PC-tools FW process constantly wrote or read on the hard drive (checked with process monitor). I have a open box so any unnessecary noice from hard drives is something I dont need. Hard drives should only make noice when I want to
Maybe that has been fixed in later version. I will try it again soon.

 

Working good here on 2008 Server. Using 12MB RAM with no noticeable slowdowns. Tried it with a few leaktests and passed all except for dns tester (I can probably mitigate its effectiveness once I tweak the rules).

 

Network Speed: I tested PC Tools for network speed over a wired connection through a router. There was no difference with and without PC Tools. A 701 MB video file transferred in 72 seconds, which is as good as I have ever seen on this 100 Mbit connection.

I took PC Tools off my notebook because it would not wake up fully if AC power was interrupted during sleep. I don't know if this is a widespread bug, or limited to the Sony Vaio SZ that I use. The Vaio SZ is a tough machine to keep happy. It needs 20 drivers just to make things work right, not including the cellular modem, which I do not have enabled.

Since someone asked my problem with LnS in a LUA was that it would not save its settings at times. Also if I switched into the Administrator account and then back to the LUA it would try to load the profile from the Administrator account and fail. There may be work arounds, but I have not encountered any problem like this with any other firewall. LNS as many arcane settings. Sometimes I think it is more of a firewall construction kit than a consumer personal firewall.

Other recent trials:

Comodo 3: Pending files keeps getting the same files from Symantec AV updates every day. Generally too intrusive.

OA Free: Release version assumes local network is trusted, not acceptable for portable computing. This is fixed in the Beta, but there are some other bugs yet to be worked out. I intend to try this one again with the next release.

ZA Pro: Most recent release of V7 ran without incident although memory usage was a bit high. It did not seem to offer any advantage over my favorite Comodo 2.4 and it not free, so I am not switching.

CHX-1: Just for kicks I tried this oldie. Wireless WPA2 would not connect after sleep. As it is no longer supported, I gave up. Perhaps someone around here knows the answer.

One thing about the user population here is there seems to be relatively few notebook users and a lot of folks with old hardware. Notebooks offer all sorts of special problems. If some oddball peripheral is causing a problem, you can't replace it. Keyboard function keys usually need drivers. Power management is complex due to the battery. Wireless is an entire new world of problems for some firewalls.

 

So what firewall are you using?

 

Comodo 2.4, for now. No issues except that CPU usage with Bitcomet is higher than I would like.

 

Hi Hairy Coo, ... No, It was confirmed Look 'n' Stop has been used to develop the PC Tools Personal Firewall Plus software... https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=922880&postcount=21, http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=440&highlight=Look 'n' stop


Hi Diver, ... You mentioned "there are a bunch of problems with using LnS in a LUA", can you list them all over on the official Look 'n' Stop product forum or here even? And if you don't mind me asking, what version of Look 'n' Stop you used that you basing your two listed problems on?

Your problems may be specific to poor registry shutdown timeouts tweakings, and can be problematic not to just the Look 'n' Stop product.. Look 'n' Stop for instances saves Look 'n' Stop settings changes upon shutting down, and if poor tweaking to windows shutdown procedure, the Look 'n' Stop application may be terminated instead of a graceful exit causing different tasks to not be performed.

Running different tweakers can have undesirable side-effects, and often the user doesn't even realize what tweaking have been performed. The default shutdown timeouts are...;


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/191805

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="0"
"HungAppTimeout"="5000"
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="20000"
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="20000"



Regards,
Phant0m``

 

If those are the defaults you're posting, it should be 20000 not 2000.

 

You are correct Espresso, it was from memory (I'm currently on Vista), so I made some mistakes. I also corrected AutoEndTasks from DWORD to String.

Thanks.

 

PhantOm,

Myh system has not been tweaked. Its stable, there are no usernv errors. Version 2.06 P2. Perhaps I should try the release, vanilla 2.06. I am running SP3 build 3244 (not the latest) and some of my registry settings are different from your information. Auto end tasks is set to 0, and that last one is not there at all.

Problems included:

Log off from LUA then log on to Admin Acct, then reverse to go back to LUA. LnS attempts to load the Admin profile and can not access it.

Failure to save application rules at all.

Failure to automatically save internet filtering rules automatically. Must press save button after changes.

Unable to maintain a single profile for both accounts. This may be a feature, but it drives me nuts. The data should be saved in the all users tree.

All I can say is that no other firewall that I have tried has these quirks. Its hard enough to set up a new firewall without having to worry about stuff like this. These problems did not happen on Win 2003.

As I am about to go on the road for a while, I will not be trying anything new until I get back. Its too bad because there is a lot that I like about LnS.

 

Hi Diver,

Your AutoEndTasks is set to default, 0 is default.

Thanks for mentioning your problems, all the setting saving problems could be traced back to just the one problem.

I'm going to try reproducing, I'll report back when I have something.

 

Thanks.

 

Well I did it. I installed PC Tools Firewall and I like it a lot. I was wondering if the test on Speedtest.net is reliable? The reason I ask is. I am on a wireless PC behind a router firewall, and have taken it many times with other software firewalls installed, but none of my times have been as fast as they are now. Now I admit some of the tests were with Avast Home and not my current AV which is AVG Pro, but most were also with ThreatFire which I have installed at the moment.

 

Look at this and consider going back to Comodo. PC Tools isnt that much better then no firewall.

http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php

 

Yeah, the results were not that good for PC Tools Firewall Plus, however the tested version was 3.0.0.36 and the current version is 3.0.0.60. I couldn't find a feature description for 3.0.0.36 on the PC Tools forum and I wonder if the advanced features in the latest build were present in 3.0.0.36? It would be helpful if the same tests could be run on 3.0.0.60 to see if it scores better. It's interesting to note that Norton Internet Security 2008 is in the Very Poor category, however it was very highly rated in the PC Magazine review. Perhaps this has to do with different testing methodologies? Comodo Firewall Pro v3.0 just received a very positive review from PC Mag as well, so it would be interesting to see how it scores on the matousec.com tests.

 

Don't forget that I try out different security products and like almost everyone I try. LOL. I am not worried about leak tests and what matousec says. I'm behind a router firewall and usually have either ThreatFire installed. What I like about PC Tools is that it is very light. My PC is responsive and my browser speed is fast. I actually don't even think i need a software firewall. However, since again I like trying out different security apps and especially newer versions, I know a nice program when I see one, and leak tests aside, PC Tools IMO seems to be doing a fine job with improving this firewall. Do I like ZAAS more? Yeah. Do I like Comodo more? Yeah. But right now it seems my boot ups and PC and browser speeds have never been faster than with AVG Pro, ThreatFire Pro, (both given to me free) and PC Tools Firewall running. Of course next week it could be back to Windows Firewall, Spyware Terminator, and something else. LOL.

 

Thanks.

 

Aside from the "problem" I had with disabling the driver (which is less a real problem, and more a test) and a little slowdown, I didn't see anything wrong with PCTools. I would suggest two simple tests to you Dieselman:
1) Configure PCTools as you like it (add the rules you normally want to use) and then run all the leaktests yourself (i don't recommend this on your main computer, you should use a virtual machine to be safe).
2) Deny Internet Explorer from PCTools, then run the leaktests again.

My point? The results will depend on the way you set up the firewall (in the fist case you might even get a worse result, and in the second case a much better result). The results from Matousec are just a refference.

 

Matousec tests were apparently done with "Enable protection against code injection" disabled. Enable it and the results will be significantly better.

 

Rather stick with award winning software.

 

FWIW, I got PC Tools FW to get along with my notebook. For those of you that run LUA and are having problems with this or any security app, try training the app while in the administrator account.

The Matousec score would be 825 points higher if he did not give 25 fewer points for tests not passed in the default configuration. This would put it in the middle of the "Good" range. Personally, I think this does not make a lot of sense. However, if the configuration change is not obvious, this should be footnoted. With PC Tools, I think its pretty obvious to check memory injection.

As a side not I found several apps that have problems with multiple firewalls. One would not run if its internet access was blocked, the other was a burning app with a custom ASPI that wuld not load. The first did not like OA free or PC Tools. The later did not like ZAP or Jetico I.

 

There is a smart update available for this product that fixes crashes when protection against code injection is enabled.

 

I have now installed PCTools Firewall in my LUA in Vista and it works fine (this far anyway) I dont have the constant read and write to the hard drive as I had with PCTools in earlier versions.. It is easy to understand and doesnt bother me much.
It doesnt slow down P2P traffic, I get the same speed in my 100MB/s line as with or without Look´n´Stop (which is my normal FW) = full speed.
But I guess nothing else is to expect since PCtools FW has the LnS engine.

 

If I have a gripe about PC Tools, it is that the GUI uses too much memory. THe memory usage increases as the GUI pages are opened up, and the memory is not recovered. Not serious, but a rough edge to say the least.