Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

After some research the problem was found and fixed. The Italian translation file had an error in it. It was fixed and updated on the website. With the new fixed translation file everything is working fine again. Tested and working 100%.

 

I confirm working 100%. All resolved quickly thanks to the excellent assistance of Binisoft.
Great program. Thanks Alexandru

 

Windows Firewall Control v.4.0.4.0 - New Version

What's new:
- New: It is now possible to export only partial policy files that include only the rules selected by the user. Select some rules in Manage Rules window and use the context menu on the selection. You will see a new entry named "Export selected rules". When you will import this file, as usual, only the exported rules will be imported while the existing rules will remain unchanged.
- Fixed: The new user settings are not saved until program restart if the user uses the "-reset" parameter to clean any stored user settings.
- Fixed: When the user checks if a new update is available, the GUI is becomes unresponsive. A new busy indicator was added to show that something is going on.
- Fixed: When restoring the default set of rules or importing the rules from a file, the profile is not updated correctly in the Profiles tab.
- Fixed: The rules list does not refresh correctly if Manage Rules window is opened and the user: restores the recommended rules, duplicates multiple rules at a time, creates new rules for multiple files at a time by browsing them.
- Fixed: When loading the rules, sometimes, the reloading of the rules fails because multiple rules have the same internal hash. Switched to Guid instead of Hash.

Installation notes: Just use the updater to update to the new version. That's all.

The following translation strings are new: 022, 023, 779.
Translation strings that were modified: 016, 017, 414.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
SHA1: e153c3a9a4e01835e118be6be8e64662d6a5db63

Thank you for your support and your feedback,
The developer

Please share your feedback regarding the new feature. Is it useful for you ?

 

I have installed it in non activated mode.

I have discovered that creating a generic rule ,non application one is not quite str8 forward.

You have in the Manage Rules , under Create New Rule section the Browse/Click to Allow/Block items ,but no generic create new rule item.
To block some ports for any application i need to duplicate an existent rule and modify it.

Is it a limitation of the non registered or by design ?!

It s no biggie ,but ...

Ah , also after adding some rules and restarting PC i had a pop up from Windows that wfc is trying to make changes to the system , i presume the loading of the program went wrong or something. Happened once ,maybe something random.

 

Unlike WFwAS, there is no wizard to ask for which program, ports, etc, you want to create a new rule. This is done afterwards by editing the rule. The idea was to have an easy way to create a new rule, without those countless wizard pages from WFwAS. As you figured it out, you can create a duplicate rule and modify it to apply to all programs and you will have a generic rule. 99% of the users just want a simple allow/block thing and don't care about rule customization, ports, IP addresses, etc. So, to answer your question, this is by design.

WFC needs only standard account privileges to run. If you saw that pop-up probably the service (wfcs.exe) was not yet ready or busy and the GUI (wfc.exe) tried to restart itself with admin privileges to be able to start also the service. If the service is not found (disabled, not installed anymore, unavailable, etc) the GUI component will try to start it and for this it requires administrator privileges. If the service is found and the connection with it is successful, it starts normally with standard user account privileges.

 

I'm using version 4.0.3.0 and although the "Specify the locations for which a new rule is applied when creating a new rule" option is working well when I manually create a new rule, when a rule is created from the outgoing connection notification dialog it is always created as applicable to "all". Is there a way to force these rules to automatically be generated with the same default location value as the manual ones?

 

Indeed. This is a "bug". I will update the code and the next release will have this fixed. Thank you for reporting this.

 

Hello alexandrud,

in the latest version you introduced the full backup and partial backup. This is nice. Thank you. I read in this forum for not so long time and use your nice software since one month. This is my first post and already a wish for change. Sorry.

But maybe you can modify the files a little bit to keep them better separated. Both files have the extension wfw but they are total different. I can name the files at the export like I want. Then I can have a xxx.wfw and a yyy.wfw and do not know anymore which one was the fulll or the partial backup. I could open it with notepad to see it or check filesize...

Maybe you can make the new partial to wfp or anything different to the original full backup that they can not be mixed up.

This could help if the question from string 414 show up. There it should be also more clear what is full and what is partial.

Thank you.

 

Thank you for your feedback. You are right, it is not very clear what will be imported, especially if you change the file names. I will change the default behavior like this:

1. The user pressed on the Import button.
2. He chooses the file to import: *.wfw - Windows Firewall policy (full policy) or *.wpw - WFC specific format (partial policy).
3. Based on the extension of the selected file, 2 different messages are displayed which will be more specific to what will be imported from the selected file.
4. The import continues or is cancelled based on the user option.

Do you agree with this solution ? It is more straight forward.

 

Overall this front end is good.
That option that blocks the firewall creating automatically it s own rules for inbound is extremely interesting.This stuff always annoyed me when using the build in firewall,Once some software gets updated a rule gets made or overwritten there to allow everything in just because Windows thinks that software is safe or something.

And i like that USB blocking software idea even though i have not tested it.

Congratulation for this software.

Let s see how it behaves in time now ,if Windows updates don t brake it.

 

Thanks for the fast reply. Yes, this sounds good.

 

So far I like this program but there is something I would like to suggest. Can you make it so WFC will lock itself after closing it to the tray or exiting instead of having to enter a new password each time to lock it again? It would also be nice if WFC prompted for the password whenever you try to access a locked area, such as the manage rules window. Other than that this is a great program.

 

This can't be done with the current approach. I will think about it. Autolocking feature requires a totally different implementation. The locking feature is an exotic feature that is used by very few users and has low priority.

 

Windows Firewall Control v.4.0.4.2 - New Version

What's new:
- Improved: It is now possible to do multiple tasks at once in Manage Rules window. While the data is loading in Recently Blocked view, the user can also search for executable files in New Rules Wizard and he can also create new rules in Manage Rules view. In the previous versions, while a long task was running the other actions were disabled. Now, multiple long running tasks can be executed in the same time.
- Improved: The partial policy files have now the extension *.wpw. This will help the user to identify more easily what kind of file he will import.
- Fixed: When creating a new rule from the Notification dialog, the newly created rule is created for "All" location even if in Control Panel the user defines something else, for example only Domain.
- Fixed: When using Recently Blocked window, after you create a new rule it is not possible to create a second rule until you don't refresh again the list.
- Fixed: When using "New Rules Wizard", after the user browses for the folder where to search for executable files, the search does not start automatically.
- Fixed: The result dialog indicates a successful action after the user chooses to import a policy file, even if the file was not valid and nothing changed.

Installation notes: Just use the updater to update to the new version. That's all.

The following translation strings are new: 421, 422.
Translation strings that were modified: 414.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
SHA1: 6cbe80716bd93a7a36b47251d1338875658eaeb6

Thank you for your support and your feedback.

Have a great weekend,
Alexandru

 

I use the lock feature so standard users can't make changes to the firewall, but having to type a password each time to lock it is kind of a pain. I think having an option to require admin privileges to open WFC could work to prevent standard users from modifying the firewall. I know supporting standard user accounts is a feature of WFC, so maybe requiring admin privileges could be optional.

 

Just installed new browser - sleipnir5.

Cannot access net. Every time I open it, the WFC window pops up, i say permanently allow. WFC blocks it. Have "manage rules' via 'browse to allow'. But every attempt to access net = BLOCKED.

 

WFC does not block or allow anything. It is just a front end for Windows Firewall which does the block/allow operations based on the rules it has. From your description it seems that Windows Firewall does not work properly because you create an allow rule and the program is still blocked.

1. What other security products do you use ? Antivirus, antispyware, anti-etc ?
2. Do you use any software proxy or NDIS driver ? These are incompatible with Windows Firewall.
3. Other programs can connect if you allow them or this is a problem with this particular software ?
4. What profile do you use in WFC ?

Looking forward to hear from you.

 

1. Other security are MBAM pro & MSE & AppGuard.
2. No.
3. Only this new browser & I cannot get the home network between PCs going.
4. What's a WFC profile?

 

@alexandrud

short feedback:

the partial policy feature is very useful for me!

Greetings,
Alpengreis

 

1. Try to disable temporarily AppGuard and see if you can connect with this browser when AppGuard is not running. If this does not help, try to disable temporarily also MBAM and try again.
3. Try to restore the default policy to have the default Windows Firewall set of rules. Now you should have the Low Filtering profile enabled. Does the browser can connect now ?
4. A WFC profile is the profile that you enable in the Profiles tab of the software. It defines the filtering level that is applied to the network connections.

 

Hello alexandrud

Thank you very much for this really great program. I plan to give it a try, and I'm also ready to donate 10$ if I like it. But before, I just have one little question about the program itself:
Is this really a pure GUI for the native Windows 8.1 firewall, or does this program change *anything* within the system, which will remain persistent in the case of uninstalling the program some day?

Best regards,
Chris

 

Windows Firewall Control is a front-end for Windows Firewall. It means that the filtering is done by Windows Firewall and also the rules are handled by Windows Firewall. WFC offers a different (improved, optimized, easier, say what you like) way to configure Windows Firewall. It offers also some new good features that are missing from the native firewall, like: notifications, locking mode, shell integration, exporting of custom rules instead of all, etc.

Windows Registry is used to keep user settings but when you uninstall WFC, these keys are automatically deleted. So, when you uninstall WFC your system is clean of any WFC trace.

 

Thanks a lot for your fast answers. Coming from Agnitum Outpost Firewall, which recently developed some incompatibility with my Antivirus I will switch now to using the standard Windows Firewall instead. And your program looks really nice and promising with regard of handling all the Firewall settings. I just installed it and made my first steps. A real easy way to handle all the rules. Thanks a lot for this great piece of development and keep on the really good work and the close contact with all your users.

I will for sure donate $10 in the next few days. This program is simply awesome !

Chris

 

I'm using Privoxy and Advanced Onion Router. Is there a better rule set that can be used other than just a allowing 'in' and 'out'? I'm just starting out with any kind of rule creation. Is there a good tutorial on writting rules with the Win Firewall?

 

Switching to low filtering has allowed the browser to access the web.

How do I return to medium filtering with acccess allowed here? The browser is already 'allowed' but Medium blocks it when I change back to medium. Actually it asks allow/block? but access doesn't 'engage'.