Not using Threatfire. Why?

I used it for a couple days liked what I saw, but after the first couple of computer reboots, the GUI would always freeze. Couldn't close the GUI process cause it was protected. Restarted a bunch of times as I liked the extra protection. But a frozen GUI where i can't even run a scan or update is a no no for me. I'll wait till more bugs are ironed out I guess...

 

Bellgamin,

Making it easier to flag intrusions (level 5), has a strange side effect: TF using way less CPIU cycles (because it does not have to track hnext steps after an intrusion).

Level three is directed to grabbing all baddies without FP's. The price is some CPU spikes.

People having CPU spikies could try level 4: downside is that you have to perform a training check like with any classical HIPS, to establish a proofed baseline bahavior (because illiminating FP's will be more on the user an dless on TF).

 

Kees, that's some very interesting insight into the Protection Level there. Thank you, I'll try level 4 and see if that remedies my CPU spikes.

While on the subject, I always thought a higher protection slider level would correspond to higher CPU usage! Maybe I just didn't have a thorough enough understanding of TF's mechanisms then

 

@Kees- Very good to know. Thanks! Too bad that TF doesn't have a Learning setting. However -- as I noted earlier -- I have not had all that many *unnecessary* pop-ups at level 5. Much less than I had expected.

 

Assuming, you have a clean harddisk, it would be an improvement, that TF would do an automatic configuration during the installation, based on the installed softwares, instead of forcing the user to do it manually (learning mode or not), especially at level 5.
TF can also provide an option for the user to use this automatic configuration or not.
After the automatic configuration, the user can still adjust the configuration for specific needs.
The same counts for HIPS (EQS, SSM, ...).
It would not only save time, but make it also more usable for less-knowledgeable users, because he would find examples enough to see how it's done.

AE creates its whitelist of executables automatically during the installation.
I'm not saying that it is as easy as AE to configure TF, EQS, SSM, ... automatically, but did they ever consider or analyze this, if it was possible or not or how far it was possible.

 

The GUI would freeze while running under Vista for me also. Logging off then back on would unfreeze it. Also the constant disk writes were really annoying. Maybe it was conflicting with Avira.

XP so far has been no problem.

 

Would I be correct in thinking running Threatfire alongside Online Armour paid would be overkill or are they fulfilling different functions with some cross over.

 

I installed TF yesterday, (XP with Kerio firewall and AVG 7.5), just had a couple of GUI freeze ups today, which set DrWatson on the go. But I will give it a few more days to see if it settles down. One thing I have noticed though my firewall has flagged up 4 TF app wanting to access the net.
Namely TFud.exe (no doubt the updating app)
Tfgui.exe (probably that is to update the map on the GUi.)
but what are the other 2 for ?? TFservice.exe and TFtray.exe ??.
I have disabled the auto updates and commmunity service, but why is there 4 when 1 should be enough for updating purposes.

Cheers and thanks Gordon

 

I've tried Threatfire on two separate occasions and on two different computers (1 XP and 1 Vista). It runs well for a while but eventually, on both computers and on both occasions, it ended up corrupting my Firefox extensions (to the point where I couldn't use extensions at all and ended up restoring an older image).

I know this sounds weird but it's happened twice on two different computers.

 

Thanks for that warning, I'm more interested in such info, than all the glamor around TF.

 

I tried v3.5 ~ a week ago but it was very buggy on my Vista system, specifically the network access rules. I switched over to PC Tools firewall.

 

Version 3.5 has been "unlucky" for me too. It eats 10% of CPU with p2p. I now use 3.0.14 and CPU usage is extremely low. I do sense a slight slowdown at browsing, but at least it's behaving nice.

 

I had the same problem with the LAST version of TF. With v3.5 I've not experienced this issue yet. Keeping a close watch on it.

 

I have uninstalled it after it flagged c cleaner as a trojan when cleaning

 

LOL. Yes some scanners act very weird, some of them reported SP, AE and IZarc as f/p's.
It's called Artificial Intelligence, more A than I.

 

I prefer CyberHawk by Novatix back in the hands of them not PCTools, but thats the trend in this economy starved state of matters of the early 21st Century these days.


I tried ThreatFire, several times, and it just isn't progressing in the right direction in spite of it's artifiical following. Just my opinion, but i seen it all before. I see right thru it.

EASTER

 

Now one of my XP machines won’t go into hibernate mode. SP3, MBAM, and TF were the last things added to it. I’m betting on SP3. Time to troubleshoot.

 

Probably a good thing to remove it. People in the Online Armor forum have posted that they get hammered with popups and it causes problems with drivers loading and installs...

 

I have TreatFire on my machine and nothing wrong so far. It works just perfect and no conflicts with other real-time protection apps: ESET Antivir + Comodo Firewall Pro + Spy Emergency, low consumption of recourses.

So all is OK with TF, must have it.

 

This thread is about NOT using ThreatFire and why, but you are USING it.

 

TF always ran fine the first couple of days then the trouble begins.
High cpu, to the point of locking up the pc.
Rebooting does not help as TFService I believe it was, was at 100% cpu, the only solution was to rollback to a snapshot before TF was installed.
That was with five seperate installs and about three or four different builds.
I think i'm done with tring TF.

 

Please don't get me wrong. In CyberHawk there was a definite progression toward reflex action interceptions in spite of the occasional notepad FP, remember that one which everyone crowed about including me? Still, that was nothing in comparison to it's picking up threats and did seem reasonable stable.

Theres just something amiss when programs change hands or merger sometimes, case in point, BoClean, FD-ISR, etc.

I know it must be difficult to make those hard choices to transfer over with mergers or draw up contractual distributorship agreements to stave off elimination entirely, but haste sometimes makes waste, and i think it's better to tread water just a bit longer and examine other potential partners then just to jump right in because maybe the price is right or the offer is time limited.

Look at Microsoft's approach at Yahoo, after it appeared it was all but over, renewed interest is surfaced once again and is beginning to look agreeable for both sides of those businesses now.

It just takes patience sometimes and intensive examination of options, but also some businesses can't exactly afford to exercise those same time limits since their meter is running out on them.

 

ErikAlbert,

You are right, I dropped in the wrong place
Laughing at myself

 

As long we keep our sense of humor, mistakes are always fun, including mine.

 

I use it on my wifes computer, as she needs things to be pretty silent.

I will say that TF does work pretty well. Catches many virii, trojans and nearly every leaktest I could find. I one respect with it running your firewall becomes better because most of the 'testing' apps can't get past it. Some virii I have collected also were sniffed out by TF, but most of them after Avira already made it known.

I stopped using it on my computer because of the disc activity. I seen no unwanted cpu usage, had no conflicts or bsod's. Drivers and apps seemed to install ok with it running.

I first noticed that even some games that aren't super intensive had some 'pauses' in them. Then I started snooping, and found that if I listened very closely, I could hear what I thought were hdd head movements. I thought maybe it was a fan. I suspended TF for awhile, then later enabled it. Sure enough, the hdd activity 'noise' suddenly appeared. Sorry TF, I have some good hdds right now, and don't wish to have any issues with them, so bye bye.

On the plus side, messing with DSA with it's mini inbuilt firewall is showing some promising results.

Sul.