another Windows Firewall Control?

Thank you.
Yes memory consumption is lower now. After opening the windows, doing some operations and closing WFC to system tray, memory consumption of wfc.exe falls back to about 54MB (has been 70-90MB before).

 

Can Windows Firewall Control auto update itself now? Last time I used this it doesn't. It would be a good addition imo. . (It would be possible now that WFC is using a service for it's tasks)

 

Memory consumption is still at 120,000K.

I do not know if there is a reason to generate a rule (after an alert) specifying the local port for a connection.



If chrome or an application attempts to connect to a different port than before, the WFC produces another alert (hence a rule) for the same connection with a different local port. A general rule, per connection, stating "any" local port with "specific remote ports", should do. Can't the WFC generate an alert like this to avoid generating "n" alerts if the same application attempts different local port please?

 

alexandrud, I really need your help with this.
So I installed WFC again in my laptop in my Standard User Account.
All is well but after logging out and testing my Administrator Account, wfc.exe is not auto-starting with Windows. wfcs.exe does.
And when I manually run wfc.exe as administrator(in my admin account), I get this error.

Any ideas? Again, all is well with my Standard User Account where the installation happened.

 

Here are some figures for memory consumption in WFC 3.6.0.1. Did 3 tests, each consisting of opening WFC, opening one or both windows and then closing the window(s). Private bytes and GPU dedicated memory use were observed. This is only for wfc.exe, as the service executable doesn't seem to vary much.

Code:

            | Private Bytes | GPU Dedicated
--------------------------------------------
Startup     | 62,192        | -
Main Window | 84,376        | 17,704
Close       | 84,288        | 17,704
--------------------------------------------
Startup     | 62,088        | -
Rules       | 119,720       | 60,220
Close       | 114,068       | 60,796
--------------------------------------------
Startup     | 62,048        | -
Both        | 116,148       | 79,384
Close       | 111,272       | 79,384

Personal conclusion: It looks like both RAM and GPU memory use has gone down since the previous version. However the consumption still remains at peak levels when the windows are closed. The only way to clear the memory is still to exit WFC and then run it again.

 

I am seeing these same results, memory use is down and increases by about 40 Meg upon opening of manage rules window (as expected), however, upon closing of the manage rules window, the memory usage does not go back down to initial levels as would be expected. That memory is not being released, at least not here on my Vista Home Premium x64 system. This is not a major issue to me, but it would be nice if that memory was actually being released.

 

hey this is a great app, I think you are doing a fine job.

 

If the rules are not loaded, the wfc is 42.

 

At installation WFC automatically sets full access to the installation folder and for the files in it. See the screenshot below. By setting the file permissions for Everyone to have full access all problems regarding the file permissions are solved. In your case something went wrong. Please open the Properties of wfc.exe and under the Security tab, check if your current user have read access to the file. If "Start with Windows" does not work on another user account, by disabling and enabling it back from the WFC main window, the shortcut will be recreated also for the current user. Please let me know if this solves your problem.

The memory will not be the same as it was at startup until you have opened the main window for the first time. The main window is still singleton and it resides in memory for the entire execution of the application. Also, until you open Manage Rules the rules are not read. In the next version I will make also the main window to be instantiated every time it is opened. In this way, all the resources used by this window will be released.

The memory does not go back to the initial values because the Garbage Collector does not dispose the objects from memory instantly. Actually, you can create a few instances of the same object until GC will collect and dispose the old and not needed ones. So, for example, you can open and close Manage Rules four times and only on the 4th opening it will dispose from memory the first 3 instances. This is how GC works. So, you will never have the same memory as at the startup because all the times it can contain disposable objects but not yet disposed objects.

 

Thanks, it worked. Weird that it doesn't have the "Everyone" in that group.

 

May I suggest to increase the security of this fine application by publishing to this forum the MD5/SHA1 hash of every new release?
This will increase the confidence that the executable on binisoft has not been tampered with by an intruder at 0 cost and 0+ effort.

 

I will do this. I will publish these also on the website. Thank you for your suggestion.

 

slightly off topic but i have a suggestion. i have been following the discussion regarding this firewall and i think that rather than entirely disabling some function like fading windows in and out, it would would be better if there was an option to let the user decide whether to enable or disable certain functions.

 

Customising and clearing the local port entry will stop any more alerts for the application
you can also do this for the remote port if you like.

 

Thanks for the improvements!

 

It seems that the fading effects, the custom windows that use transparency effects, the custom title bars, all the graphical enhancements, consume a lot of CPU and memory and makes the program to be not so responsive. This is why I am working to a new improved version which will use the default chrome window instead of a custom window like it is in the current version. It will not have the same fancy look but it will be faster. And after all, I started this project for the functionality that it offers, not for the graphical part.

Unfortunately, the fading effects can't be switched by the user because the program does not support skins. All these effects are hard coded in the application and it is not a trivial task to make this switchable.

What will be new:
- The new version is 30% faster than the current version and uses less memory and CPU.
- The scrolling in Manage Rules is smoother.
- Importing and exporting the policy will use *.wfw files, like the Windows Firewall uses.
- And more.... which will be in the change log.

The new version is almost done but I still have a few things to implement.

 

Thanks. Could you please advise how does one accomplish these?

 

Go to "Manage Rules" window and then double click on your rule. From the new window that appear you can modify the rule properties of the selected rule.

 

Looking forward to the update

 

Oh...I see. I have done that many times. But, the WFC still pops up an alert for the same rule with same port that I previously modified. The result: I seldom run the WFC as I directly set the rules in the native win7 firewall.

In win7 firewall, the browsers have been set for TCP 80, 443; DNS rules are set for UDP Out, remote port 53 and remote IP (Open DNS addresses); and, the adapter has been set to use the Open DNS addresses. I can browse the net with no issues. Nevertheless, I find it strange that the firefox (some times) and the Chrome (most of the time) still attempting to access the Google DNS server addresses. This is obviously blocked by default and has no impact on the browsing.

I suspect if the Chrome any way seeks to resolve IP addresses through the Google DNS.

 

Version 3.7.0.0 available

What's new:
- New: Notification sound option in the Options tab. This will generate a sound when a new notification is generated and this option is enabled. Useful for Metro applications because notifications are displayed on the desktop.
- New: The GUI was redesigned to use standard window chrome instead of the skinned one. It seems that the fading effects, the custom windows that use transparency effects, the custom title bars, all the graphical enhancements, consume a lot of CPU and memory and make the program unresponsive on older systems.
- New: Importing and exporting the policy will use *.wfw files, like the Windows Firewall uses, instead of compressed *.wfc files.
- Improved: The scrolling in Manage Rules is now smoother by using proper virtualizing options.
- Improved: Memory usage was improved by 30%. All windows are recycled and the memory usage drops after GC.
- Improved: Various visual enhancements that offers a better view of the current state of the program.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc.exe
MD5: EB2F77BB839733B544EDEFBAEBBD5642

Your feedback is welcome. Please let me know if you see a memory usage improvement and if the program is more responsive. I know it is not the same fancy GUI like in the last versions, but this is better on many other sides. And it is not looking bad at all. Look at the screenshot below. This is how it looks on Windows 7.

Thank you for your support and your feedback.
Alexandru

 

I noticed one behavior in this version. When opening Windows Firewall Control with left click, in the Policies tab, it auto sets the setting to "No Filtering".
EDIT: 1. I did the update by uninstalling the previous version and installing the current one.
2. Another behavior is that this version can't uninstall in my system. (I'm planning on doing a clean install again if it fix my problem). When launching "uninstall" in add remove programs, WFC just start itself normally. What parameters do I need to add in the end of wfc.exe to uninstall?

 

I did a fresh install on this release as there were some major changes. I forgot that you changed the rules format so I have apparently lost all of my rules. Is there a way to import my previous old rule-set?

Also in this version, I am not getting notified every time an app is being blocked. This seems to be hit and miss. Some apps will notify me first time and I create a specific rule. After that if the connection is blocked, I do not get a prompt...

 

Managed to uninstall it for now. I guess there is something wrong with this version.

 

I finally had to remove it myself as the learning mode is totally erratic now, what it seems to be doing is let me make one rule for each port on an app. After that rule is made there is no more pop-ups. I like to try to make most of my rules port and IP specific, but after the first IP is seen for a particular app and port, learning mode stops working and blocks everything else to that app. I could make a rule leaving both port and IP open and generically allowing, but that defeats the purpose to me. I hope a fix is found soon as this is the first time I have been without wfc in quite a while and I miss it.....