Private Firewall 7 (free) and W7 64 bit ?

Yesterday i was looking here and there to see what firewalls are able to "do" W7 64 bit and i saw that there is some firewall called Private Firewall.
This software (the name is rather neutral ) never atracted me until now ,but the Windows 7 compatibility and "the free sticker" got my attention.
I see that some older version is ok at Matousec HIPS test (not the best but not useless).

I have some questions regarding this firewall and i hope someone will answer to some of this questions :
Does it work properly with W7 64/32 bit -no BSODs ,no lock ups?
Whats the network filtering engine under the hood and how good is it compared to Outpost ,Comodo and/or PC Tools ?
Does it alow detail rule making ,like you can do in Outpost for example ?
How is on the resources side ,compared to PC Tools for example, which keeps pings in online gaming at minimum and doesnt hog the system (when it s not bugging ).

I ve tryed many firewall solutions in W7 64 bit untill now (in the last 2 months) and i m a little disapointed regarding the offers.
I m trying hard to get some security solution combination for my future W 7 based system.
Outpost firewall and PC tools freezes the system ,Comodo pops up stupid questions from time to time ,regarding some connections that have already proper rules made per app and global.Quite annoying to see rules that you already done to be asked again and its happening for the HIPS component too.
KIS firewall was good at filtering ,but the organization of the rules and the logging was bloated and unintuitive ,no offence ,but very messy firewall (thogh light and good on the inside).

So ,anyone used this firewall ,is it any good with W 7 ?

 

Hi Sm3K3R,
I can confirm that PFW(latest ver.7.0.20.35- 6th Jan), certainly works fine with
Windows 7, but have only used (many times) on 32 bit. Their support says that process monitor component disabled in 64bit scenario, so this might be a negative for you. However it has got fairly detailed configuration options, and is
certainly secure.There is a pop-up(at start-up) which can be disabled. Also, PFW is light on resources and generally trouble-free.
I'm no expert, but at least this is an opinion for you.
Cheers,
Dermot.

 

Thank you for the answer Dermot7.
Seeing so few replyes i "tested" myself the firewall.Installation went ok and indeed the HIPS is not available in W7 64 bit.

Now after the installation i tryed to see it blocking something to get some trust So i setup Firefox aplication ,which in default autogenereted rules had outbound acces to FTP alowed, to not be able to acces FTP port.

After blocking FTP for Firefox manually i did a simple stupid test,i ve launched Dr Web Cure IT and went to update it via Firefox (Dr WEB Cure IT updates are made via DR WEB FTP website ) ,expecting not to be able to update it.
Theoretically my rule should of blocked Firefox to acces Dr WEB FTP and i shouldn t of been able to download something via FTP ,but the problem is that i was able to download.
Looking back at Firefox ruleset (which was manually tweaked to block FTP) under Aplications i ve seen that the rule for FTP was now on Alow basis insted of the Deny ,which was set by me.
The firewall settings were on Manual basis in the generel settings and the 2 boxes undernnith were checked ,to be asked and to disable the auto rule (dont remeber the exact name of the feature).

So whats with the rules ,why do they modifie by themselves ,why is my setting overrided ?I consider i should be able to block ports as i wish.

The second thing that i didnt liked is the logging feature ,there is no information regarding blocked /alowed info.You can see the packets and their directions but not if they were blocked or alowed .

The general Block switch seems to work though ,nothing overrides it.

Any aditional informations on this " issues " ?

For the moment i ve uninstalled it.

 

Hi, my usage of pfw is on xp 32bit but a couple of thoughts.
1) Was 'enable training' unticked in advanced settings?I can't remember if this is enabled by default.
2)Mozilla may have been listed as a trusted publisher. It's listed in mine and I've never had firefox installed on this computer.

AFAIK the program only logs blocked data.
hope this helps

 

timcan ,thanx for the answer ,i ve installed it on my older rig ,in W7 32 bit environment ,ill see how it goes.
I ll play a little with the vendors section and the training feature .

 

I'd wait for v8...

 

When will that be? And why would you wait?

 

just being whimsical... got a hunch v8 will be much better.
in the meantime we'll get CIS 4 so no worries.

 

Ok so i ve installed it in Windows 7 RC 32 bit ,on an older machine 1,9Ghz Barton CPU and 1 G of RAM.
I ve retested the behaviour observed in W7 64 bit with Firefox and the FTP custom block rule was still overrided.The training was off as you can see in the first atachement.Then i removed Mozilla from the trusted vendors .

After this the behaviour has changed and i was asked for the connection which i blocked .

Another pop-up got in the right lower corner regarding Firefox
afterwards.

Now ,when i only blocked without ticking the remember box the rule will revert to alow by itself and make Dr Web update file to be available for download .If i check block with remeber the rule stayes blocked and the file is stopped.
Kind of strange ,but it finally blocks.
Dr Web Cure IT update is used purelly as an example ,maybe someone can do some real tests.
I hope this help some one elses issues.

 

Hello,

Am also on 64bit, but that doesnt really matter. Also in 32bit i noticed that if you are away from your computer and a tray alert appears, you might have a problem, as the default reply (counter counting down) is Allow.

Don get this logic either. All other firewalls ive used Block by default, which obviously is safest...

They do not have a forum to discuss this on, to my knowledge.

Brgds
mack