Your opinion of Online Armor Personal Firewall

please!

 

I think it's great, I installed it and it's doing it's own thing without a whole lot of input from me. However, when I'm installing software, I sure would like that "install mode" option in the pop-up box to not be grayed out. It sure would save me from answering what is sometimes 20 or more pop-ups asking me what I want to do about every last file that wants to load during the install.

I actually tried to find the answer to that, maybe I didn't look hard enough. That's my one and only complaint so far and it's a major one.

 

I like it. I've been mostly Jetico v.1 for the past 16 months, tried Comodo 2.x, then 3.x (beta), and didn't care for it -- slowed my internet connection, used a lot of resources.

OA is light, quick and scores high (or even best) in the Matousek leak-test. I know, I know... that's a test of debatable value. Still, I'd rather have FW w/ HIPS function that *passes* tests than one that doesn't.

I'm on the latest beta build of OA, and it runs lighter than ever (using about 16 MB of RAM on average; pretty considering the HIPS function).

I like it. Try it for yourself. To be less bugged, stay with an official build, not a beta.

http://www.tallemu.com/index.html

SamSpade


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Since my long time now abandonment of ZA i enjoyed perfect tranquility with the so-called obsolete Kerio 2.15.

I harbor suspicions when it comes to any firewalls aside from this old Kerio because most all of them proven to be lackluster at best in my own opinion of course.

But with the debut of OnLineArmor, this one is renewed my interest for the first time in a very long time. Personally? I like it. I only tried the (free) version mind you, but i like the results and what i seen of it so far even in this infant stage of it. What really puts the pudding on the pie with OA for me is the addition of it's HIPS.

Now to the most important aspect of it. Mike Nash is gone above and beyond the extra mile in replying then correcting any issues brought to his attention and he seems to really enjoy his corresponding with users in this forum. That speaks highly for this product as well as his self.

I give 5 stars for effort, courtesy, support, and of course the app itself.

 

Its a good firewall and HIPS. Easy-to-use, relatively light, and powerful.

 

Anyone know how it stands up over this issue? Long story short, NOD32 is kind of rendering firewalls useless.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=192305

 

I tried and its good but I like Comodo. I do not get any slow down like others posted. Online Armor free edition is very limited though. No updates. No options unless you pay. Comodo has tons of options. Also OA becomes part of your start up screen and shut down screen. Like they are pushing there product.

 

Actually there is an option to remove that Online Armor banner from appearing. Anyways, I think its great knowing that my computer is protected by Online Armor and I am sure proud in announcing\advertising it!

dja2k

 

A very good firewall, I used it before .. I just uninstalled online armor & switched to Comodo Firewall Version 3.

 

That's a big Hmmmmm. My install mode has always worked. I have the paid for version, wonder if that makes a difference.

 

I believe it does.

 

I am currently trying different firewalls again (have image of fresh install to revert to in between installs). I was not considering online armor or comodo because I assumed both would slow my system down noticably. But after reading some posts here, decided to test for myself. I was actually pleasantly surprised by both, more so by online armor.

My reboot time (hitting restart button and waiting til all is loaded and cpu silent) on fresh installed image is 55 seconds. With online armor or comodo, both loaded in about 62 seconds, so no significant delays. Both better than my current ZAP.

Online armor did not change my pc mark5 score at all (each test run twice). My current fresh install score is 9635 bare (+/- 25 points is not significant). My online armor installed score was 9646. In the breakdown you can objectively see that web browsing/page rendering not slowed, desktop rendering etc, not slowed, very surprising for a suite. This was with the full trial version with AV. (pic1)

Comodo noticably slowed web browsing/page rendering and this can be objectively seen in pcmark5 web page rendering, decreased by 23%. Otherwise all other tests were not statistically different from baseline or online armor. (pic2)

Both worked well, my only complaint was for me a 23% hit in web browsing from comodo is not acceptable.

I have not finished testing yet, but may end up getting the paid version of online armor with AV myself.

 

Hmm, well, I kind of believe that sort of option shouldn't be reserved for just pay versions, it seems to be something you would need to deal with when using any HIPS program. But, oh well

 

There are 2 services for OA and Comodo. You are only showing 1 for each. Comodo for me has cfp.exe and cmdagent.exe.

 

I simply highlighted each as proof which program I had installed, can only highlight one program at a time in taskbar. Though comodo and oa both have miniscule memory footprints, memory usage is one of the least important measures imo, as it does not necessarily correlate with performance (unless one program is taking 5x as much as another).

I am much more concerned with measurable performance hits, as programs with small footprints can seriously slow performance (slow realtime scanning, hooks, etc) and sometimes programs with large footprints have no detectable slowdown. PCmark5 is currently the standard that most reviews use, as it measures a wide variety of most common tasks.

 

I'm using Online Armor free version and I like it a lot.It's easy to use and gives a lot of info for a firewall.

 

Hi all,

Thanks spamyou, a very interessant test

I don't give my opinion because i would not be objective as i saw the firewall in OA from birth to a very mature product.

MaB

 

Cant use p2p with OA, OA totaly killed speed in utorrent, emule etc. Mike and crew should work to solve this problem. Should be lighter on resource too.

Anyway OA has perspective to be the best firewall/hips software in future.

 

Hi fedore - we did already It is now in beta, but some instability prevents us from releasing to the world. We work to fix it.


Mike

 

Thanks for your empirical research, spamyou (!!). I've noticed the hit on web surfing with Comodo, too. I had not done actual timed tests, but it was clear to me that it was slowed in comparison with other FWs. Actually, I did one test: I did a timing of connection to a site, and it was four times longer w/ comodo than with Jetico, three times longer than with OA. Jetico was the fastest for me. OA a close second. Comodo a distant third.


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It's working fine with azureus for me, but I am currently on a pretty slow connection that I have to keep throttled (30k dsl) maybe that makes a difference?

For those having problems installing other software (too many popups) I think you can just temporarily de-activate program guard?

Thanks for the great package.

 

FYI

Scott's (Finnie) Newsletter 11/25/07

"If you’ve read at least some of my ongoing series on software firewalls for Windows, you should know two things by now:

1. There aren’t many good software firewalls out there right now.

2. My focus has been on outbound protection since anyone sitting behind a firewall router has very good inbound protection. ..."

"... Online Armor has a very good chance of waltzing in and stealing top honors as the Scot’s Newsletter Best Software Firewall of 2008. But I need your help. If you’ve used this product, or if you use it after reading about it here, please take a few moments to send me a description of your experiences. ..."

Been using OA Free without any problems, very light no noticeable impact on my system's performance or conflicts with other security software. (BitDefender 10 AV/AS and SUPERAnti-Spyware)

Only con is you need to know how to use a rule based firewall if you more control over firewall other than its very good "Standard" mode that automatically creates rules for apps you allow/trust.

 

I had some problems when i tried free OA some weeks ago ,on w2000 prn 2 occasions after reboot ,windows failed to load saying a windows system file had been damaged or was missing.I had to use rollback rx to get windows to boot.Now this may have been a conflict with some other software i had installed.At the time i had nod 3 RC1 installed and admuncher which brings me to my main question.Has mike and murray sorted out any possible conflicts between admuncher and OA?.Im now using avast free for my av ,and sygate pro for my firewall ,together with threatfire ,and its great to be trouble free.However being the addicted program freak that i am ,id like to give OA another go again if theres no conflict with admuncher.It would be nice to hear from any other w2000 pro user that runs OA with no problems so that i can rule out an OS confict.
ellison