Where do I even begin, seriously? I tried the BETA and took for what it was, an unfinished product. The only appeal the program had on me was the GUI and everything else fell flat, which was why it wasn't on my PC very long. Heck, I even made a request post on the official Forum for the Developer not to get carried away by adding nonsensical features and simply develop a standard minimalistic firewall. I guess my request fell on deaf hears. As most people have said and echoed, I also agree that in comparison withthe alternatives available, they pretty much KNOCK glasswire out of the ball park.
I know how you feel. Especially the high resource usage is a concern for me. It does have some potential, but I would rather see it become more like ZoneAlarm back in the days (not the current one with a dumb GUI). It seems like the developer is also thinking about offering a lifetime license, I hope it will be reasonably priced, especially when you consider what other apps are offering.
Glasswire's pricing is absurd and not worth the "ask to connect" it adds to the free version. As well they can be taken to task for "GlassWire's firewall" when it is in actuality a presentation overlay to Windows Firewall. That said, it's very convenient overlay where one simply needs to click to block/unblock applications under the Firewall tab. I find everything else about Glasswire to be competent, accurate network monitoring and reporting and the security alerts are spot on. It's a pleasure to use. Addressing the issue of local host proxy filtering, there's no value to the discussion. MBAM Premium's mbamservice.exe uses it. Eset doesn't. BTW, GW 1.1.15 is out today (from 1.1.7, April 30). https://www.glasswire.com/changes/ .
It doesn't bother me that it's not a true third party firewall, the standard one in Win 8 is actually quite good, at least technically. I'm currently using Windows Firewall Control 4, but I'm not completely satisfied, it has no quick overview of which apps are allowed/blocked to access the network. About "local host proxy filtering", the question is: Is it really necessary for a non-AV to use this tech?
"It doesn't bother me that it's not a true third party firewall, the standard one in Win 8 is actually quite good, at least technically." It's so good that you're not bothered. In using GlassWire you would still be using the at least technically quite good Win 8 firewall. I also had No Love for WFC. I think all your curiosity can be resolved by examining all the screen shots of the enchanting GUI at https://www.glasswire.com/ and https://www.glasswire.com/features/ There's no shot of the firewall pane, so as for a "quick overview of which apps are allowed/blocked" here is... Clicking on the little grey flame will toggle it to full color (as on the tab), indicating mode Block. Clicking on the app icon reveals the exe, app data and logistics in a popup. And a button for a virus scan. Maybe local host proxy filtering is (and I don't care) needed for that scan and/or these security modules: If all that isn't sufficient to at least try it, of course then it's Not For You. I find GlassWire free to be of exceptional value and a pleasure to use. If they ever sell a 3-PC license for under $30, my PayPal account is ready. Cheers. PS Its un-installer is quite thorough.
Thanks for the feedback. I don't see how "local host proxy filtering" is needed for these functions, but I guess only the developer can clarify. And "no love" for WFC goes too far, it's a cool app, but I'm missing a handy GUI. But your review does make it tempting for me to check out GlassWire.
Avast has used a local host proxy for years; ever since they introduced their first HTTP web filter. Other than giving third party firewall users fits, there have been no issues with it. Avast is an established security software vendor; that's the difference in my book. The decrypting and scanning of same HTTPS traffic is a different issue and has been commented on in other Wilder's postings.
Version 1.1.21 beta - (Jul 30, 2015) Inactive firewall applications are now grouped separately under the "Firewall" tab if they show no attempted network activity for 7 days. Now get alerted about new unknown devices that join the network, instead of getting alerts about every device that joins or leaves the network. Go to GlassWire's settings then choose "Security" then click "Network device monitor". DNS is now resolved for local hosts. Away intervals now appear in the "mini" graph. Many fixes and improvements including a bug that caused GlassWire's graph not to start working for some users. Source: https://www.glasswire.com/changes/
I've just been testing Glasswire very briefly, and it's visually very impressive, very informative. But I still like Windows Firewall Control (WFC) better because it let's me click on files from Windows explorer menu and choose to allow or block them. I'm wondering if anyone has tried using both? Either at the same time, or WFC on demand (to add rules) when Glasswire is off, and then Glasswire when WFC is off?
It has bugs. I have the paid version and the ask to connect and block all option does not stay and it goes back to default click to block which allows everything to run with warning. It is a bummer.
I'm running an IS suite with its own firewall, so GlassWire Free is just a system monitor over here, and an awsome monitor it is. All the security alerts work great as does the dynamic tray icon. And the network monitoring presents data unlike any other utility I've ever used. Within a couple of days of first running it, I found one of the MS telemetry "phone home" scheduled tasks (via rundll.exe) I disabled years ago had become enabled. Yes, I know I could have been running something else that would have revealed that but not in the easy, obvious (and oh so pretty) way GW does it. I'm lazy, so it's perfect. The IS suite on my old laptop is expiring soon and I might just run a free AV and GW Free instead. Or not. I know what I want blocked, so I can just do that manually as needed. I don't know if I'd be comfortable without some kind of outbound warning tho. GlassWire is still in beta and I find it interesting people are paying for it and the features $49 enables, even if lifetime, really aren't worth it. Yet. For that kind of money, I want to at least choose my own colors. Something a little more... manly.
I had WSA on my wife's laptop for years (since 2010), will be using the freeware combi of Panda and Glaswire Free from now. With Glasswire on I can check fom time to time what is happening on that laptop, without my wife being nagged about applications to go outbound. I have set Panda to ask before neutralizing a malware (and opted out from the Panda news). Even on an old dual core Celeron P4600, it runs okay (I have replaced small harddisk of this Lenovo with a 1GB hybrid).
Still expensive for a firewall tool. Their versions are defined a bit oddly. They restrict features for a single pc user..
I have the paid version of the both WFC and Glasswire on my main system (64-bit Windows 8.1, soon to be Windows 10), but I also use the free versions on other systems. There are three Glasswire processes I see in Task Manager; Glasswire (32-bit) (GlassWire.exe), GlassWire Computer Idle Monitor (GWIdlMon.exe) and GlassWire Control Service (GWCtlSrv.exe). The latter uses about 1-2% of CPU and the first one uses about 300-400 MB of RAM (other two use very little RAM). To put that into context, that's the highest RAM use of any process currently (and normally) on my system unless I run games, or other resource intensive programs. That said, it works smoothly and I don't mind programs using lots of RAM since I have a lot of it, but your mileage may vary. Also, on another system the free version is using only a very small amount of RAM so again your mileage may vary depending on the system. imo, the free version at least is worth a try - if you don't like it, then just uninstall it or only run it on demand. I actually haven't made any use of it per se in the sense of blocking any process based on it's info (well, I removed a weather gadget because it was too active for my taste), but I like looking at what processes are using lots of bandwidth, what processes used the internet when I was away, what sites they call, etc. and if I were to see something I didn't like or some process using more bandwidth than I felt it should, then I might investigate and/or block or remove the process.
I have GW free running on two Windows 7 x64 and one Windows 10 x64 systems and all three processes totaled use less than 50 MB on either system. So, that would verify pajenn's report of free using only a very small amount of RAM. Interesting disparity between free and paid. And, yes, it works smoothly. Very smoothly. I really enjoy the product and, to reiterate my previous posting, it presents connectivity data unlike any other utility, dismissing it's oh-so-pretty-pretty GUI, and the security components are superb. If this were some freeware project, I'd be clicking on the coder's donate button. Half price is a good price for a life time license, but SecureMix is still, as of this posting, distributing a beta product. IMHO: Promoting the application as "firewall software" is inaccurate and, at the very least, feigned. In the vast expanses of white space in their many 10-foot deep text-challenged "modern" pages, no mention is made that GW is a WFW overlay with the ability to inject rules. (For the apps you block, note for each a @{Glasswire.application_GUIDstring} rule in WFW Advanced Security.) Over the cyber decades, the association of firewall has evolved in meaning so your opinion might differ. But I personally cannot abide by the SecureMix assertion that "GlassWire is a...tool with a built in firewall." Source: https://www.glasswire.com/features/ You just have to peruse their forum for questions/confusion about GW and WFW to see how many have been hoodwinked by that.
how is that 50 MB compared to what other processes are using on your machine? if you sort the processes in task manager by Memory is Glasswire at the top or near there? for me, even on the machine with the free version, though Glasswire doesn't use much RAM in absolute terms, it still uses lots compared to other processes (right now 5 times more than the next process). anyway, this is not necessarily a bad thing - maybe Glasswire is just more efficient at taking advantage of the available RAM...
Could high memory be related to you 'torrenting' possibly (torrent using 5% CPU) Glasswire is then monitoring lots of connections ?
maybe... but even if I stop utorrent or restart Glasswire, memory use doesn't go down, at least not immediately. also, i notice that memory use increases over the day, so maybe Glasswire just logs a lot of things into RAM and it just stays there until reboot. after reboot memory use is lower but Glasswire and Glasswire Control Service each still use more memory than any other processes on that machine. However, I haven't done exhaustive tests on this or anything like that, I just noticed Glasswire was using lots of memory compared to other processes, and thought I'd add that caveat before recommending the software, which I do or at least I think the free version is worth testing.
