Sunbelt Introduces Clear Cloud-Beta Testers Needed

Maybe GFI could make CC and VIPRE work together... That is, VIPRE should be aware that CC DNS is in place, and leave the domain blocking to it... after all, they do share the same block list, correct? Being so, for what I can see, there's no reason both should be blocking the same...

I don't know how Vipre works... its settings and all, and therefore no idea about what it allows to set, but if it doesn't exist already, perhaps a setting allowing users with both Vipre and CC choose to let CC take precedence in domain blocking?

 

ClearCloud DNS seems to perform better overall than Norton DNS in several YouTube tests that have done. However, for people using Vipre AV it might be worth while using Norton DNS and vice versa for people using Norton AV so that they have two different sets of signatures analyzing web traffic. The main downside to using Norton DNS in my case is that there is no data center located in Australia.

Nick would you say ClearCloud would benefit users who already have Vipre AV installed?

 

The best benefit I can see is that you can set the DNS on your router for your entire network. That way, other computers without VIPRE can enjoy the same website blocking.
Another is that the DNS is updated in real-time, as opposed to VIPRE's schedule.
One more possible benefit is that it'll work when VIPRE isn't be functioning correctly.

 

Initially, I was attracted to DNS services because of the possibility that they might be faster than my ISP's service. The blocklist was a very welcome plus, of course, but not what I was looking for at first.

The speed enhancement seemed tangible enough to me, and I quickly saw the benefit of a malware blocklist, and felt I'd finally found something good when I learned to use Norton DNS as an alt service behind ClearCloud.

I have been told by GFI support (not Nick, fwiw) that there is "no reason to use ClearCloud if I've already got VIPRE 4 Premium... it offers no additional protection over VIPRE 4 Premium", but unless VIPRE offers a DNS service (I think it's just a blocklist), then I do get the benefit of whatever speed enhancement or reliablilty boost CC may offer over what I was using before.

 

Well when testing out using DNS Benchmark it found 47 DNS servers which were reliably faster than Norton DNS so I ditched it. Vipre's web filtering is probably plenty sufficient since ClearCloud uses the same filtering signatures.

ClearCloud doesn't really affect web traffic performance however so I'd recommend it over Norton as there seemed to be a slight delay in loading web pages with Norton.

 

I have vipre premium and i use clear-cloud service...no problem on my seven x64 and IE9.
Very good protection.

 

No need for an explanation when a picture will suffice:
http://shirtoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/rocket-surgery.jpg

Forgive me if you felt slighted, but I couldn't understand how a poster with 2000+ posts on a security forum would be stumped by a 'block test' page working correctly.

 

Think of it this way... the reason I have 2000+ posts on a security forum is because I am stumped by a lot of things.

 

Yes, while they use the same block list, there are actually some benefits to ClearCloud over Web Filtering. VIPRE's Web filtering only monitors traffic over port 80 (although we plan to make this configurable in future releases). ClearCloud would block bad sites no matter what port is used. Additionally, ClearCloud is updated instantly as new bad sites are added to our block list, while Web Filtering in VIPRE needs to be updated through definitions so updates to it's block list usually occur only every hour or two.

 

Just to clear this up for anyone who mightn't know, 'rocket surgery' is a cross between 'rocket science' and 'brain surgery'. It tends to be used in a more jocular fashion than the phrase 'rocket science'.

 

I've noticed that ClearCloud blocks all .co.cc sites regardless of whether they're malicious or not. Their reasoning is that the domain is a major source of malware.

I guess they're too lazy to blacklist each individual site. I've asked them about whitelisting safe sites, but they say it's currently not possible.

 

That's sometime I mentioned before.

You can bypass CC restriction for the websites you wish, by placing the domain and respective IP in the HOSTS file.

I'd actually like a client-side application where I could block access to websites by TLDs. This way I could block access to all .cn, .info, etc.

Not sure what would be your (anyone's) take on this suggestion?

 

Really? Most of .tk is blocked and I reported the main website (dot.tk) as a false positive and they whitelisted it.

 

Ask them yourself. Although it was a while ago, this was their response.

 

So for example, Raymond.cc is blocked for all Clear Cloud users?

 

I said .co.cc sites.

 

It wasn't that I don't believe you, it was to let you know that they definitely have white-listing functionality. So when they say "not possible" it's nonsense.

 

This link it's a demostration of the good interaction among Vipre antivirus premium and clear-cluod DNS:

Attention! Link redirect to Fake-AV!

~~ removed malware domain link ~~

As is seen, the link is blocked from clerar-cloud but not from vipre.

 

I'd remove the direct link to that domain. Place a - before the URL. You may remove the URL altogether, because if my memory still serves me well , posting URLs for malicious domains or domains containing malicious URLs are against TOS of this forum.

 

Stopped by TrafficLight, WOT and also the domain is disabled by the webhoster when you ignore the above.

 

I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed any difference by having more than a DNS server in my configuration. I had both CCDNS and NDNS, but NDNS didn't seem to have been used when CCDNS failed, at all.

Is it working for you?

Unfortunately, CCDNS doesn't seem to be working any better. The service quality seems to be exactly the same, from the moment they started to offer it. I really see no improvements, at all. Maybe it's just me, anyway.

I'll give it a couple weeks, after that if it doesn't improve, I'm done with it. I won't be dealing with it any longer. Not worth the trouble. I may give Norton DNS a try and see how it fairs.

 

I haven't had any outage at all since the last fiasco but I see no reason why Norton didn't kick in after CC failed for you.

However I share the same feelings that CC seems stale. It also seems like the beta tag is simply there all this time to cover their buts when they screw up.

 

I think the main reason why I still haven't tried Norton, is that CC allows to report FPs. That's a plus. Unfortunately, that and the protection offered seem to be the only great things about it. Stability is

 

i didn't see this mentioned anywhere on wilders, but for those of you who use clearcloud:

source: http://forums.clearclouddns.com/messageview.aspx?catid=274&threadid=7955&enterthread=y

 

It's already discussed here :

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=300572