Online Armor Free?

A few years ago I was using an AV and wanted a firewall. I think I used OA Free without a hitch.
I have gone to Avast Pro and am using the W7 firewall.
How is OA free now, or maybe W7 firewall is about as good except for outgoing traffic.
Opinions?
Thanks, Jerry

 

W7 Firewall rules are harder to config without third-party programs. If you can handle it, then OA outbound protection shouldn't be better.

OA does have a HIPS, which monitors program behaviour. That can be a big advantage.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I will just stick with the W7 firewall for now.
Regards.
Jerry

 

I installed OA FREE and using it now. Looks good.

One question: When I install a trusted program, OA keeps popping up dozens and dozens of pop up windows.

What's the best way to tell OA to stop popping up windows when I install new trusted software?

 

Enable "learning" mode and then revert back to normal.

 

That's not a good recommendation at all! That means after time OA gets clogged up with programs in listing because everytime I install something new I had it in learning mode and it places gazzlion files into the allowed listing.

There must be a better and more effective method that doesn't save all the files in the listing.

 

I blocked Windows Media Server program called "wmpnetwk.exe" and now OA keeps popping up a window every 2-3 minutes that it's blocked the program.

How can I tell OA to stop harassing me with those pop up window messages?

 

disable the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

 

Use google.... disabling it wont stop it trying to access the internet. A well known issue.

 

Try going to Programs and options top left hand corner and remove the tick from Notify when OA blocks a program.

Nessy

 

What it was an applictation and for whom he was trusted...only for you? During installation OA you have to go through Safety Check Wizard and at this time establish a list of trusted applications which is based on B / W lists of OA...after the wizard is complete you get a list of unknown programs that are installed or any possible threats and now you decide.
When you install some new application that is trust for you, you can enable "install mode" in pop-up...it's enough.
Read this
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/info/oa/QnANotRecognise.html
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/info/oa/Popups.html

 

Where is that?

I can only see an option that says, "Notify me when programs are allowed to access the internet"

Where is there an option, "Notify when OA blocks a program"?

 

use google

 

Ahh I didn't know there was an "Options" Tab in Programs

BTW, should "hidden process detection" be selected?

 

The Mozart,

Please read the Online Armor Web Help.

• Hidden proccess detection - Changes whether Online Armor will pop up when a program runs but tries to conceal itself from view (e.g., from the process list in Task Manager). This option is still experimental and may alert you of processes that are not actually hidden.

 

What is the point in 'install mode' then?

Besides OA popups continue to annoy the user even in every days use (eg not installing anything).

I use the last.fm scrobbler (a simple, safe and well known program). Despite setting it to 'allow, remember, trust' OA generates 10 popups every time it is launched.

Its hard to have any faith an Firewall that will not learn the rules you repeatedly set it - I removed it last night - its unusable.

 

There should be a box that says don't ask again, if so put a tic in it..

 

The option is called 'remember my decision' - it makes no difference.

Online Armor will repeatedly prompt you to allow programs which you've already trusted, allowed and told it to remember.

It has a lot of nice features, and it should be great, but the constant popups make it unusable for me.

 

No pop-ups here, and I use OA (both paid and unpaid) on 5 PC's. Make a program "trusted" is not enough, you must also "allow" it in Programs. If you block a program you must make sure to remove from your auto-run list (preferably by third-party software), otherwise you will sure get a pop-up message.

 

Does anyone else get a constant ~7-10% CPU usage from oasrv.exe? This occurs from startup, regardless of which features I have enabled. I'm on Win7 x64.

Never heard of it. I have it disabled and have sharing disabled in WMP and I never hear a peep from it.

 

I get 0-1% on oasrv.exe, also on W7x64SP1 but with OA++. Does anything show up as being logged if you select log all?

 

Online Armor Nod 32 = BSOD for me. Online Armor took ages to resolve it so I removed Nod (Eset).
Love online Armor especially its Run Safe. Don't bother about HIPS in the security products there's too many holes in it still to spend money on a such a feature.

 

There isn't much in the logs. The cpu usage seems pretty constant, independent of network activity.

 

I prefer A firewall asking me a lot of questions the first week after install. If it didn't I would think either its got AI or its junk.

 

Subt x c:\windows\system32\drivers
Does HIPS protect x:\drivers\*?