PC Tools

Can anyone confirm whether the PC Tools firewall being discussed here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=160868

is in fact a (free) re-branded version of LnS ?

 

That's impressive !
Frederic might be interested in your link, too

Thomas

 

I agree. It certainly does look like LnS.

 

Yeah from the looks of it, it appears to be lns with a fancier gui. I wonder if frederic has struck up a deal with pc tools or something.

 

I hear from the creatures here that LnS is very light on resources. does that part seem to match up with the PC Tools FW as well. How about that ram useage.

 

No the pc tools fw uses around 15mb of ram, far more than lns does, however the pc tools firewall does have a lot more eye candy in its gui which would explain the higher ram use.

By the way i see you are still using ZA pro 4.5, that was a great little firewall i used back in the days before ZA went downhill a bit

 

I have taking a quick glance at some of the screenshots of that there product, the Ruleset looks almost identical to Look ‘n’ Stop standard Ruleset (StandardRulesSet.rls), the rules names and rules descriptions all look the same from a quick glance, only one addition to that there other firewall ruleset is ‘UDP : Authorize most common Internet services’ rule which Look ‘n’ Stop Standard Ruleset doesn’t have.

The logging is also sharing the same identical layout, and many other shared or similar features.

If this isn’t a re-branded version of Look ‘n’ Stop (or earlier Look ‘n’ Stop version), I would have to suggest something is very weird going on here, with a little work, I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible to replace the Look ‘n’ Stop GUI, it’s the drivers that does it’s thing, the Look ‘n’ Stop GUI just receives the driver messages and offers means of configurations.

How that other product done its application GUI, being that graphical would surely require bit more resources, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing something possibly illegal here…

Without a good explanation from PCTools, I wouldn’t trust this product, and from what I have read there seems to be a lack of support (or NO SUPPORT AT ALL?). Several reasons currently which makes this other product a complete waste of time…

 

We'll have to wait and see what frederic has to say on the matter.

 

FWIW,
I have been playing with the PC tools firewall (on/off) for a few days. I was interested with its logging ability, as this was down to TCP flag level, but could not understand the need for this from a firewall that does not give the options to filter (make user rules) at the same level.
From my use of PC tools firewall, I do not see any sort of SPI, but will of course check on this.
The rules may, from the filter options window, look the same as LnS, but I assure you they are not.(you only need to open the edit rules window to see this).

 

Look ‘n’ Stop packet-filter works at the lowest level possible, the Application-filtering is separate, doesn’t work the same way most are familiar with (expecting from Application-filtering based software firewall)… This here is in regards to your TCP Flags statement…

The Rules Editor can be different; actually a lot can be different and this would be the case if they re-built the graphical-user interface from scratch, all you need is the Look ‘n’ Stop drivers and have the understanding how to read what is sent from the drivers, and know what to-send to the drivers. Let’s take SPI for an example, say if they were using Look ‘n’ Stop packet-filtering driver with SPI capabilities, if their version of the GUI doesn’t offer control for it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the capabilities, and doesn’t mean it cannot be activated…

If illegalness relates here, Frederic will know, regardless how different the graphical-user interface may be…

 

Farmerlee, thanks for the reply and info. 15mb is not to bad. Would not want it to be more. I'll hold off awhile.

(Reloaded my old copy of ZAP 4.5.594 on family machine for the heck of it. Simple effective FW for the kids).

 

From other posts i have read it appears the ram usage drops down to around 6mb after its been running a while which is quite good.

 

Anyone still think I'm off base on this?

 

Thanks for the update, phantOm!
I would never trust "this piece of software", even if it would be for free...

Thomas

 

Nice to see they finally responded to my inquiry on the PC Tools Forum. Too bad they didn't really clarify anything.......

 

Sometimes clarity can come in different forms, take this for instances…

We knowing Frederic, knowing that how thorough he is, he doesn’t leave a topic unread, and since he has been to this forum several times since this post date and have not answered as of yet, we can safely say there isn’t anything illegal happening here…

AChen>
- “I believe we use some third party technology in our product *”,
- “* but the development team have said details of that are confidential so I can't confirm whether we have sourced technology from LnS or someone else. *“
- “* I do know that the technology is world leading *”

- They surely would not say they use third-party technology if they didn’t
- Take note they mentioned “sourced technology”…, also I like to think if a product A had NO RELATIONs to product B, the people of product A would clearly state this.
- Wouldn’t you agree that Look ‘n’ Stop is up there among the best of the popular software firewalls? And what other firewall on the top of this list (or NOT) that this product shares similarities with? Actually bit more then similarities, I bet if I were to install PC Tools, I could discover all that much more…

 

Just been posted some minutes ago...

 

I guess they'll be planning to bring out some sort of 'pro' version.

 

According to the quoted message in PhantOm's last post I think we (the registered LnS users) should expect at least one statement from the author of LnS.

Will LnS be further developed by Frederic? Personally I can not believe that the same firewall engine will be sold on two separate GUI plattforms from two different companies!

My actual fear is that LnS (as far as I know the program and the excellent support) will no longer be supported by Frederic

Hopefully I am wrong :\
Thomas

 

I can’t foresee the future for Look ‘n’ Stop, I do know that v2.06 of our Look ‘n’ Stop is still being developed and will be released in some weeks…

 

Dear all,

We would like to inform you that the Look 'n' Stop firewall software has been used to develop the PC Tools Personal Firewall Plus software following an official agreement.
The Look 'n' Stop firewall will continue with version 2.06 to be released soon, including Vista compatibility, support of IPV6, quick rule import and other enhancements that will be available for free to all registered users.
PC Tools Personal Firewall Plus will continue independantly from the Look 'n' Stop firewall.

Best regards,
Look 'n' Stop team

 

Thanks JF,

The insight you provided should be calming to many, hopefully though the progress of Look ‘n’ Stop will continue, 2.06x and up, and not have something funky occur upon first v2.06 release…

 

Dear JF,

Thank you so much for this statement !!

The fear in the last post was related to my experience with my previous firewall. Around the millennium I was very happy with a product called AtGuard. But for some reason the company (WRQ) sold the firewall to Norton, and most of you know what happened to this perfect firewall afterwards
I feared that maybe Frederic was planning something comparable, which would be very, very sad!! Fortunately I was wrong!

Thanks JF

 

Pc tools only allows filtering rules .Application rules are global and cant be changed.Is this a risk.Rules can be set for bittorrent with look n stop and apply them for only bittorrent.With pc tools you have to allow application internet access,with no options.Then set ports in filtering rules to allow,but no option to set for just bittorrent

 

New version: PC Tools Firewall Plus 2.0.0.9

PC Tools Firewall Plus feature highlights

* Protects your PC as you are working, surfing and playing.
* Intelligent automatic protection without all the questions.
* Easy to use. Designed for both, novice and expert users.
* Advanced rules to protect your PC against common attacks.
* Best of all it’s FREE. No catches, limitations or time-limits.
* Platforms: Windows Vista™, XP and 2000

New features:

1. Firewall engine works as a service, this means it is up very early in the boot phase
2. Added support for Vista and IPv6
3. Monitors all network drives
4. Introduces two zones (Internet and trusted) with different rules
5. Allows a user to create ‘allow rules’ from a blocking log for TCP/UDP/ICMP protocols (Simply find the blocking log and right click-> add the rule).
6. Allows import/export of rules
7. Firewall remembers activation settings (It can be activated without application filtering and this will be remembered)
8. More protocols are available in the rules
9. More options in settings

Known issues:

1. FW sometimes shows the wrong path for an application on the pop up menu (only if it’s a parent application that was deleted before the child had tried to access the Internet)
2. Quick user guide does not reflect the new changes in the firewall
3. Do not support multiple languages (coming very soon)
4. The firewall does not detect the following leak tests: Thread injection, DLL injection, OLE automation (PC Flunk)

How does it now compare to the full Lock n Stop?