Switching from Comodo - would you suggest Online Armor free ?

I haven't been here much for the last year and a half because I got such good advice then that I haven't needed to come back much. I have Win XP SP2 and a router, avast! AV, BOClean, Spyware Terminator, the two Java cool apps, Windows Defender and various on demand scanners. Well, my system is just too slow and I have problems with applications starting up. Also, icons in the taskbar for the running apps hardly ever show up. I unisntalled Comodo 3 firewall and my startup was MUCH quicker and all of the icons were there. I uninstalled and reinstalled comodo with and without HIPS several times and this scenario was completely reinforced: Comodo makes my system too sluggish and I hardly ever have the sandboxie icon show up in the taskbar with it installed. As an aside, uninstalling Comodo is a nightmare and requires a tool from their site. I may try it again later... but I want a new firewall now that makes controlling outgoing apps and connections really easy on an intermediate user. I have incoming covered with my firewall. I just ran GRC Shields up and I am all stealthed. I hope the firewall is light too. Are there any outbound application and connection control apps that are not firewalls ? I really don't need a firewall, per se, just control of what goes outbound.

I had never heard of the OA firewall back when you all gave me the advice for Comodo. How is it ? Is there another one that you would suggest ?

I used to run Kerio before Comodo, it was fine. ZA has given me NOTHING but trouble wherever I installed it. I was not smart enough to use Jetico. Filseclab was recommended back then, but I see that it did pretty poorly at Matousec recently.

Your thoughts.

 

In your situation, i would recommend the return of Kerio 2.1.5.
I would disable Windows Defender. Then i would set a max of apps of 4. Later on you will want only 3.

About CFP: you had CFP, WD, SBIE, ST, BOClean, Spyware Guard (i presume), AND Avast!
It was just too slow? Well at least it didn't crash
It's impossible to determine the cause of the slowdown, You just know CFP conflicts with something, that is an ok conclusion.

 

Just for the record, I am beginning to doubt the popular myth of Windows Defender being useless at detection lately.

 

solcroft,
Are you talking about the IDS part or the scanning engine?

 

Let's make a new thread if we are going to discuss other stuff, please, I am looking for help with selecting another firewall.

 

The scanning engine/detection rates.

 

Comodo, although at task manager appears light, does give a sense to me of becoming increasingly sluggier when time passes and more rules are added.

About Online Armor. I would wait for the stable release. Shouldn't be far now. I think it feels lighter on the system, but appears a bit heavier on the task manager. On the bright side, it is much easier to handle. I mean its GUI is more compact. One bug that I have the current beta, is that sometimes, Sandboxie's autodelete will give an error when OA is installed. I don't know if this happens to everyone or it is just my setup that acts like that. If you want to give it a try, i recomment the latest beta:
http://support.tallemu.com/forums/index.php



If you want just outbound control with no firewall, i could suggest:

- AppDefend 1beta (Free but nagware). Just go to default and allow everything except Network. It will now act as outbound filter.
http://www.ghostsecurity.com/appdefend/

- WinPooch. Same here. You can delete the other rules and leave only one to ask about connections. Free and open source. Rule creation per application is a bit more complilcated, but once set, you 're ok.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winpooch/


But, i would also vote for Kerio 2 too. It's so light that it is as if there was no firewall.

 

Problem # 1 is you way to many items running in the back round. Comodo will run fine along with Avast. OA is good but not for gaming if you ever play online games.

 

The OP wants a firewall. Only for outbound and light. IME Kerio without disabling anything is fantastic.
But since he complains of performance issues, i suggested what ime (although getting old) is a problem. And to set a limit of 4/3.

I have don't want to discuss the detections of Defender.

 

Then, I don't agree.

OK

 

ProSecurity Free offers definitely that (Access Network option).
Good app and very configurable for freeware.

This is a very wide (misleading) generalization.
I played CS, CS Source, DoD Source, UT2k4 and UT3 with OA Firewall, no problem.
I did watch narrowly the latency in CS with OA and KIS Firewall, practically the same.
But some seem to be cursed with bad luck.

Cheers

 

Not true. Online Armor gives you higher pings and higher latency in WOW especially. Mike knows this and has asked me to help fix this problem by installing a logging version of OA. If you play WOW it will studder with OA. I ping out using Comodo around 20-30. With OA 50-70.

 

it's useless don't doubt it, let vundo through on my wifes machine, it's gone replaced by Superantispyware Pro...

 

Speaking from some FW experience, the short answer is:

Yes, down load the OA Free and try it out.

I'm not going to debate this opinion here as I have another OA thread underway:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=189414

Make sure all the previous FW's are COMPLETELY uninstalled before proceeding particularly ZA. Do a cleanup CCleaner, and a register tidy up then a defrag. THEN install OA free.

As to to other stuff you have it seems too long a list to me dump some or just use as on demand.

All we need real time is a 2 way FW, and HIPS (OA provides that) and a Parasite preventer/scanner. Everybody here has a favorite. I use Nod32 2.7 but if I went freebie I'd use AntiVir.

 

Well said Escalader. There is an extensive clean up procedure for ZA also.

 

brjoon,
You say what operating system but you do not list your PC resources. Please list in similar fashion like I do in my sig. this will help us or at least me to understand the the apps general resource use vs what you have to work with hardware wise.

 

brjoon1021

All you need is outbound protection.Just use the XP wall ,more than adequate in conjunction with the router for incoming.

Would recommend Dynamic Security Agent,which is the HIPS component only of PrivateFirewall .

It offers good protection,runs lightly and is rated high enough at Matousec,as a seperate app.

Once trained,the popups decrease markedly and is freeware
download.

Apart from that maybe really cut down on all the other stuff.
From memory Spyware Terminator slowed me down previously ,when active.

 

DSA is good , i tried it but i found something odd in it
while it is running , if u did pinging of any DNS it willl give u requests , i dont know why
if u wrote in the "run" for example "ping 4.2.2.2 -t"
all u get are nothing but requests