Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

Just tested this out, I love everything so far, except the following:

1. It uses too much memory.

and...

2. It adds a little heft to the startup with a slight delay in loading as well, I can even feel the difference on my modern day fast machine, which is not good.


If the above performance issues where tweaked/improved, I would be more than happy to purchase a license.

Love everything about the program, but the performance is what kills it for me.

 

I agree the performance hit is enormous, at least from my pov, which I guess, as Alexandrud alluded to, there's not much he can do about it Other than that, it's a tremendous interface for the Windows firewall

One tip I might offer, is one could install it temporarily and use it as an "assistant", so to speak, for building a complete firewall rule set. Once that's done, export the rule set for safekeeping then uninstall the product. You will then only need to manually add the occasional rule for any new application installed afterward.

 

You can build the windows firewall ruleset quite well with windows itself.
I will not use this free version for a couple of reasons.

1.The main complaint about windows firewall has been outbound control and notification.Its only the "paid" version of this which actually provides this function.

2.From what i can see,the functions in this program can be performed just as well in the firewall itself.

I see no reason to install a program which uses large amounts of resources to obtain results which can be achieved manually without this app.

There are plenty of 3rd party firewalls which use a lot less ram than this.

 

The program would not even install correctly!!!

I am using Win8 64bit. I says it installed and finished. I waited for several minutes. The icon did not show up on the desktop, the startmenu or the quicklaunch box. Control Panel stated says it was installed, however, when I tried to uninstall it, nothing happened.

Even though Version 3 did pretty much the same thing, except the icon in Quicklaunch showed up, but it did not work.

W7FC worked just fine when I installed it. This is NOT ready for primetime.

I am glad I have backup images, or I would be in deep trouble as the uninstaller does not even work.

 

It's easier with this interface as an aid, as opposed to using the Event viewer filtered blocked packet (Event ID 5152) entries. One just has to check the Blocked connections, right-click and add the programs blocked, then for further restricting them, add the remote ports and even go as far, if one wishes, as adding remote and/or local IP addresses as well. It's less tasking this way than by using Windows Event viewer.

 

Unfortunately I can't reproduce this scenario. I have installed the latest version of MBAM from their website and I choose not to update the definitions database. I restarted the computer while WFC was set to Medium Filtering and no rule for mbam.exe was created. After the computer restart, MBAM tried to update it's database but it couldn't because there was no rule to allow it. Windows Firewall rules are applied before the logon of the user, so I don't see how this scenario was possible without a rule. Another question. Does Windows Firewall service running ? Do you have this problem only with MBAM or also with other programs ?

I tried this scenario on 3 different computers and it works like it should. Does anyone else have this problem with MBAM ?

Well, yes it uses more memory because NET applications tend to have a larger memory footprint than native unmanaged applications. This is because it loads also any required NET assemblies. Also, the memory reported is not very accurate because from these loaded NET assemblies, some of them might be shared between multiple applications, but in Windows they appear and are counted for each application separately. For a NET application written in WPF, the memory consumption is very standard. This is not so important. CPU usage is important because it can slow down the computer. The memory is garbage collected by the NET framework when it is the right time, and because the GC is called by the framework, multiple instances of the same objects can reside in memory until they are garbage collected. One thing is sure: you will not run out of memory because of WFC.

Regarding the start-up, I didn't encounter this problem. The boot time for all my computers is the same even if WFC is set to run on start-up or not. Very few initializations are made on start-up and the application just sits in the tray. If the notifications are disabled it is fully passive.

It does a lot more things than offering outbound notifications.
1. WFC has the possibility to lock Windows Firewall with a password to avoid other users to add/modify/delete rules.
2. It has the ability to stop other programs from creating firewall rules through Windows Firewall API. You can't do this with the default Windows Firewall.
3. It can define temporary rules which you can't from WFwAS.
4. It can modify all rules, including the ones that you normally are denied from WFwAS.
5. The rules are easier to create. And the list can continue...

There is no need to use backup images if one program is not installed as it should. There are millions of computers and software around the world. If one program does not get installed on one computer but gets installed properly on other thousands computers this does not mean a program is not good. There can be incompatibilities with any software. There is no perfect software.

1. Did you receive a log with errors when the installation completed ?
2. If you go in the installation folder, do you have there 2 exe files, named wfc.exe and wfcs.exe ?
3. If you try to run wfc.exe from the installation folder, does it work ?
4. Does the program appear in the Task Manager but not in the system tray ?
5. Is the system tray icon maybe hidden ?
6. If you run wfc.exe with elevated privileges, does it work ?

I also use Windows 8 x64 and the program works just fine.

Looking forward to hear from you.

 

Windows Firewall Control version 4.0.0.2 update

What's new:
- New: Added the possibility to change the default black theme to any color. Just go to the Options tab and choose your preferred color.
- New: Added a new column for Process ID in Recently Blocked window.
- Fixed: The notification sound does not play on the first show of a notification dialog.
- Fixed: The unlock feature did not work in update 4.0.0.1. It is now fixed and also a new message was added in the GUI to inform the user that the program is locked.

Installation notes:
1. Just use the updater to update to the new files. That's all.
2. A few more strings were added in the program. Always use the English translation file from the website as a reference.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
MD5: d6098ffed7a5ee74f2b7baaf0cd840fd

Thank you for your support and your feedback,
The developer

 

The remote address for the rule Windows Firewall Control Updater has changed?

From 50.22.79.60 to 50.87.146.202?

Thanks.

 

Yes I just found out. I received a notice from the hosting company. They have updated the hosting server with a more powerful hardware and the website was moved to 50.87.146.202 (later edit). This is the new IP address of the website. I will update the recommended rule in WFC for the updater in the next version.

 

If it won't uninstall, you need an imaging program! This program won't install correctly and won't uninstall from Control Panel.

Windows 7 Firewall Control works just fine. This one will screw up you machine if you don't have an imaging or snapshot program to restore.

1. No
2. Yes
3. No
4. No
5. No
6. No

 

Thanks for the confirmation.

I guess you mean the website was moved to 50.87.146.202 (the original remote address is 50.22.79.60).

 

Strange. The installer is able to start Windows Firewall service even if it is set to Disabled.

1. Do you use any other security software that may disable Windows Firewall ? Is Windows Firewall operational on your computer ?
2. Please go to Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc). Under "Applications and Service logs" category, there is a subcategory named WFC. Here are logged all errors from WFC. When you are there, on the right panel is a button named "Save all events as...". Use this button to export an *.evtx file and send it to support@binisoft.org to check it.
3. Also in Event Viewer, in Application subcategory located under Windows Logs category are logged all crashes from all programs from your computer. Please check if there is something logged about wfc.exe.

The program works for tens of thousands users all over the world. There may be an incompatibility and I don't know about it yet. Please help me to track down the problem and I will provide a solution.

The program can be uninstalled manually if you will encounter the uninstall problem again.

To manually uninstall WFC:

a) Run a CMD window with admin privileges.
b) Execute the following commands:

sc.exe stop wfcs
sc.exe delete wfcs
reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Windows Firewall Control" /f

c) Delete manually the installation folder.

 

Thanks for the latest release as I confirm the sound notification issue has been resolved !!!

 

1. I use F-Secure, but disabled it before trying to install.
2. Sent to you via email as requested.
3. Nothing under wfc.exe

 

F-Secure uses Windows Firewall (unless they changed something).
Could be colision....

 

Thanks very much for new version and continued support.

 

Thank you for the log file. From the log file it seems that the (wfcs.exe) Windows Firewall Control service can't start on your computer. As a result, the GUI (wfc.exe) can't connect to it. It will display an error icon in the system tray after 30 failed connections attempts to the service. This can take up to 1 minute. If the connection is not possible only the Exit context menu will be available in the system tray icon. The icon appears there, but with a delay because the service is not ready. I will change some logic in the current version and the next version should handle this scenario. It will take a few days.

It shouldn't, but for testing I will install F-Secure on one of my test systems to be sure. I will get back with details tomorrow.

 

The service is running and there is no icon in the system tray.

 

The service appears to be running but behind the scenes it doesn't. And, yes the tray icon does not appear on the first run. I am working on a solution today. Thank you for your feedback.

 

Windows Firewall Control version 4.0.0.3 update

What's new:
- Fixed: Removed the lag that appears when setting a new profile from Control Panel window. However, the profile is fully changed when the icon is updated.
- Fixed: The service fails to start if another WCF service uses localhost as endpoint making the service impossible to start.
- Fixed: The GUI (wfc.exe) crashes if the service is not available and it can't connect in the default 30 seconds timeout.
- Fixed: "Click here to activate" button remains active in Notifications tab even if the program is in locked state.
- Fixed: "Windows Firewall Control 4" button gets disabled when the program is in locked state even if it does not affect any setting of the program.
- Fixed: The default rule for the WFC updater was changed to the new hosting server.

Installation notes: Just use the updater to update to the new files. That's all.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
MD5: 6fbe449724c5981c17f919c6ce77e9d3

Thank you for your support and your feedback,
The developer

P.S.: silver0066 this version should work also in your scenario. Please try it and let me know if this solves the problem you had with WFC. Thank you.

 

There seems to exist some issue with the digital signature? I see the following message: A certificate chain processed, but terminated in a root certificate which is not trusted by the trust provider.

 

Yes, it works. I just donated $10 to your effort. Please send key ASAP.

Many thanks,

 

Any feedback?

 

You can read here about my last attempt to get a digital certificate for WFC a few months ago. The current certificate will not appear as valid because the program is signed with a self generated certificate. This will help to display BiniSoft.org instead Unknown publisher in the UAC prompt. But that's all.

 

I didn't read much further (I read the next two pages), but did they ever refund you?