Webroot SecureAnywhere: 2 Firewalls?

Hi,

I am interested in (although not involved in the testing of) Webroot SecureAnywhere. It is likely that I will purchase WSA when it is released.

There are strong indications in the posts (see below) that WSA does not interfere (and vice versa) with another firewall. I just wondered how this would work - two applications making rules about what to allow and disallow!?

At present I use Outpost firewall pro (mainly for control over outbound connections, and for the Allow Once/Block Once facility).
- Does the WSA firewall have the Allow Once/Block Once option?
- Is it a different type of product to other firewalls?

Thank you.

P.S. Although I bought Outpost Firewall Pro recently, I am not wedded to it! Will consider giving it up if the WSA firewall is good enough.

Win 7 Home Premium.

Added later after the following 2 posts:

The Webroot/Prevx Antivirus Beta FAQs: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=301207 has this from question 9 about WSA firewall:

Quote:
9. Does the firewall offer protections against different network attacks, e.g. port scan etc or is it just a allow/block thing? Does it have any effect on Windows Firewall?

The firewall works alongside, and in addition to, any firewall you currently have installed, including the Windows Firewall. You can limit applications from accessing the network or internet, block individual IP addresses, block specific URLs, individual connections, produce warnings in a granular manner depending on the status of the PC, and much more.
End Quote.

 

What posts indicate WSA does not interfere? Maybe with windows firewall but with Outpost (and similar) there will be conflicts so you are better off running one or the other

 

WRSA firewall in default mode works perfectly together with the firewalls built-in to Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Whether it is compatible with Outpost firewall, I can't say.

 

Please see thread titled: Webroot/Prevx Antivirus Beta FAQs: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=301207

Quote from question 9 about WSA firewall:

9. Does the firewall offer protections against different network attacks, e.g. port scan etc or is it just a allow/block thing? Does it have any effect on Windows Firewall?

The firewall works alongside, and in addition to, any firewall you currently have installed, including the Windows Firewall. You can limit applications from accessing the network or internet, block individual IP addresses, block specific URLs, individual connections, produce warnings in a granular manner depending on the status of the PC, and much more.

 

thanks for the link. If WSA claims it works with other fw then I guess it does. Just remember to check both if something can't access the net

 

I use WSA and Look'N'Stop Firewall without problems!

@discs- Give it a try and make sure you give WSA full rights in OP Firewall and if you have any problems feel free to post back!

TH

 

Thanks for the reply. I notice you are a Prevx forum helper. Are you, or someone at Prevx/WSA, able to answer the following:

- Why would a person need 2 firewalls?
- Even if WSA has been developed to not interfere with other firewalls and so no technical conflicts may not occur - wouldn't two applications making rules about what to allow and disallow cause user confusion!?
- Is the WSA firewall different in purpose to other firewalls? If it has the purpose and configurations that other firewalls do surely 2 firewalls is excessive - and potentially, at the least, confusing!?

This is really a matter of conceptual clarity in the way one approaches a security configuration.

WSA/Prevx are introducing the idea of 2 firewalls in a security configuration - and I do believe they need to explain this conceptually: for example: why have 2 firewalls; in what circumstances is this advantageous? etc.

Thank you.

 

It's best if PrevxHelp explains this!

TH

 

I think the original concept was to provide extended protection on top of what the Windows firewall already does, which is good protection against inbound connections. WSA's firewall is not really a separate software firewall in the true sense of the word; it's more like an extension to an existing firewall. It does have outbound connection monitoring and cloud based firewall logic to help determine what is/is not malicious. That may well be one of the major differences.

Alongside the Windows firewall, this is a formidable combination. Quite how the outbound monitoring works alongside other software firewalls that do the same thing works I'm not sure, but the cloud-based logic of WSA is the part that strikes me as being a key difference between them.

 

An excellent post! This is pretty much how I understand it too.

It might be worth noting that the default WSA firewall setting is to Warn if any new, untrusted processes connect to the Internet if the computer is infected. On the default setting, the WSA firewall won't interfere with any outbound firewall rules created using a third-party firewall, and will simply function as an extension to strengthen protection in the event that the system has already been compromised.

What's nice is that the WSA firewall can also optionally be configured to define rules for outbound control if desired, for example if using the Windows firewall.

 

Please go to https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=305134&page=9 and see post #219

 

Great posts TonyW, pegr and ams963 also I was told for these reasons that WSA will not be integrated with Security or Action center! And one other thing that most people are behind a firewall router so that person can use WSA Firewall with Windows Firewall and be quite secure and in other cases like myself I have 2 Laptops so when I go to a hotspot or even use someone else's connection that's why I keep Look'N'Stop Firewall with WSA without any issues!

TH

 

good for you

 

I didn't mean that sarcastically as I don't have a Desktop that's all!

TH

 

I know you didn't mean that I was just joking

 

OK Great!

Cheers,

TH

 

.......

 

Thank you very much TonyW, pegr, ams963 and TripleHelix for these very helpful replies.

Posts #9 to #12, cover the answers I sought - and describe how the WSA firewall is different.

I gather then that if one considers the cloud based firewall logic (to help determine what is/is not malicious) of the WSA firewall to be a signicant advantage, and therefore wishes to use it, the WSA firewall must operate with another firewall to ensure a fully secure setup.

Thanks again for helping me to become clear on some things here.

 

More info will always come at the end of the Beta as anything can change from now till then!

TH

 

I think this is the reason why the WSA firewall doesn't register itself in the Windows Security Center; it assumes another firewall will already be registered there. I suspect that in order to keep WSA as lightweight as possible, the developers didn't want to duplicate functionality already built into Windows itself.

 

The main reason why we don't integrate into the security center under firewalls is that other firewalls mistakenly detect us as one that they'll be incompatible with and then they stop functioning. We've designed it to work alongside or in place of other 3rd party firewalls and unfortunately the most reliable way of doing this is to stay out of the way. It might be worth having a configuration option to control this, however.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

I have just installed WSA beta, and within it, found a link to the help file for WSA.

From the section 'About the firewall' http://www.webrootanywhere.com/sah_Firewall.asp?n=About_the_firewall

The Webroot firewall monitors data traffic traveling out of your computer ports. It looks for untrusted processes that try to connect to the Internet and steal your personal information. It works with the Windows firewall, which monitors data traffic coming into your computer. With both the Webroot and Windows firewall turned on, your data has complete inbound and outbound protection.

You should not turn off either the Windows firewall or the Webroot firewall. If they are disabled, your system is completely open to many types of threats whenever you connect to the Internet or to a network. These firewalls can block malware, hacking attempts, and other online threats before they can cause damage to your system or compromise your security.

That's a good summary, I thought.

 

good finding man