Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

Discussion in 'other firewalls' started by alexandrud, May 20, 2013.

  1. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    Can't you do that from the right click menu on the tray icon?
     
  2. yeL

    yeL Registered Member

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    You can but i never used that. On previous versions i would just click the tray icon and low filtering

    Now i can't and if i use that approach i would need even more clicks because the UI is not present
     
  3. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    No. If I do this, there will be other users that will complain that they have to always remember to switch to their preferred tab before closing Main Panel, otherwise it will open on the last used one. Please stop complaining about one more mouse click. This is really a complain about nothing.
     
  4. yeL

    yeL Registered Member

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    No need to be arrogant and say such thing. I'm sure users use WFC in different ways, in my case i allow certain group of programs and when i need to test/whatever other programs i open WFC and switch to low filtering temporarily and back to Medium filtering when i'm done.

    For me, having the Dashboard as main tab when i open WFC is useless because it doesn't provide nothing but information, i can't change anything from there. Now i need to open WFC > click Profiles and Low filtering. Doing this every time i open it, is annoying. I was just suggesting that if we close WFC while on Profiles tab it would remember it the next time we open it again.

    I get that you're just following the Malwarebytes approach with the Dashboard but in my opinion, the above is a regression especially when we were able to do that with less clicks for years in previous versions.
     
  5. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    I did not want to sound arrogant. From the system tray icon, the steps are the same as in the past: one right click to open the context menu, one click to switch the profile. Another approach with one click is to have a batch file on your desktop that will change the profile to Low Filtering. Search this topic for netsh advfirewall. Just enable Revert profile and in case you forget to switch to Medium Filtering, it will be done automatically after a certain period of time.
     
  6. yeL

    yeL Registered Member

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    Thanks for the suggestion. I rolled back to version 5, in my opinion there's no need to have batch files sitting around when previous version is still available and functional
     
  7. lofac

    lofac Registered Member

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    May I ask why ever would the notification be DISABLED by default?
    This is the most questionable default setting I've ever seen in a software, that I remember of.
     
  8. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    Until version 5.4.0.0 the notifications system was available only for registered users. It was disabled by default unless the program was activated. That settings remained the same. The user has to enable the notifications manually. I don't think this is a problem. I know other Windows Firewall controllers that advertise the lack of notifications as a "feature". At least in WFC, you can enable them if you need them :)
     
  9. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    Thanks for a really good IMO front end product like this and moreover for the keep up that's spanned a whole lot longer than many most other common software's. Maybe not of this type, but WFC certainly is stood the test of time and on this end with running mostly Windows 8.1 is been a real treat. And that's coming from way back on Windows 98 when most user's thrilled on Kerio 2.4 I think.

    For what it's worth the notifications as well as other features in WFC seem fluid and accurate. As you might guess on very rare occasions a bumping match sometimes would happen where the WFC service didn't start after another install of something but was very stupid simple to restart the service again. That has to do with this local user's security setup juggling and in no way repeats itself so thanks for the way you fashioned it as a whole.

    Regards EASTER
     
  10. lofac

    lofac Registered Member

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    You have that option from the right click menu on its tray icon.
     
  11. lunarlander

    lunarlander Registered Member

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    Hi Alexandrud,

    When I enabled Secure Rules, a good bunch of rules' names have changed to their package name, like Windows Store became @Microsoft.WindowsStore.... . Can you please arrange so that the rule name doesn't change ?
     
  12. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    The problem is that Windows Firewall API returns those names and I coulnd't find a way to match those names to their short names like they are displayed in WFwAS. I could give it another try, but I don't know if I can solve it.
     
  13. chrcol

    chrcol Registered Member

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    thanks for the info, how did you harden the curve and ciphers? was it a windows wide thing you set?
     
  14. don_dolarson

    don_dolarson Registered Member

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    Guys, what setting is responsible for blocking and allowing home network devices, folders and so one? I'm connected to private home network through a modem/router, but can't access any home network device. Whenever double click on network icon on my desktop, a little popup in explorer says that network discovery is OFF, but nothing happens when I turn it ON cause it turn OFF itself right away, until I turn off firewall, then I can see all printers, modems and shared folders on other PCs in my network. I've checked all my blocked rules by allowing them temporarily and no one of them is causing it.
     
  15. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    Try to enable the Network Discovery and File and printer sharing groups. They will allow what you want.
     
  16. don_dolarson

    don_dolarson Registered Member

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    It's not possible when firewall is set to High/Medium/Low filtering. Whenever I try to activate Network discovery & File and printer sharing, and High/Medium/Low filtering is ON, they turns back to OFF itself. When double click on Network icon on desktop, a popup shows up in explorer about network discovery being disabled (no one of network connected devices are shown, just a blank explorer window), so I click on that popup to enable it but it just reappearing all the time and nothing happens. When firewall filtering is disabled, network discovery and printer sharing are set to ON automatically by system and I don't need to click or change anything, it just works :rolleyes:
     
  17. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    When you click to activate Network discovery & File and printer sharing, the operating system will only try to enable the firewall rules from these two groups. If these rules are not there anymore (were deleted), then nothing happens, it doesn't recreate them again. Export your custom rules, restore Windows Firewall default set of rules, enabled those settings, reimport your custom rules. This will work. Disabling Windows Firewall is not a solution.
     
  18. don_dolarson

    don_dolarson Registered Member

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    Thank you for your time trying help me. Your solution worked... until I imported my own rules... then all those default sets of rules (quite a lot of them) disappeared and it stopped working again. I tried to allow all of my own blocked rules to see if any of them is causing it, but it still won't work. What's wrong here?
     
  19. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    When you export your custom rules (filter them and select only those, not Windows Firewall default ones) use Export selected rules, not Export all rules. This will export a wpw file, not a wfw file. When you will import it, it will add those rules and will keep the existing ones. If you export a wfw file (Microsoft format) and you import it, it will first delete any previous rules.
     
  20. don_dolarson

    don_dolarson Registered Member

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    Thank you again. It worked like a charm :)
    There was quite a lot of "set of rules" and now I just need to delete all them which hasn't anything to do with accessing home network.
     
  21. newbino

    newbino Registered Member

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    I am having the same issues - how do I filter only my custom rules?
    thanks
     
  22. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    The rules created in Windows Firewall Control group are created through WFC. These are your custom rules.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2019
  23. Wokok

    Wokok Registered Member

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    I have an issue, maybe linked to the update 1810 for Windows 10.

    "Impossible to connect to the service of Windows Firewall Control."

    And the service does not appear in the extended view of services.msc. Weird.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2019
  24. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    Works fine for me in 1903 build 18885.1001:


    wfc.jpg
    Maybe you should update to the latest release for non-insiders, 1903 build 18362.
     
  25. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    The service is named now Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control. Try to start it manually. Does it work? Try also to reinstall WFC from the installer.
     
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