Any firewall that lists rules like Kerio 2.1.4?

I've been using Comodo Firewall but find the rules list is hard to read and cluttered, particularly as it hides the rules in folders until expanded, even if the application only has a single Allow or Block rule.

I posted comparison screenshots of Kerio and Comodo here https://forums.comodo.com/wishlist-cis/improve-presentation-of-firewall-rules-list-t84906.0.html and as you can see, Kerio's list is much clearer and gives more information in less space, reducing the need to scroll to find rules.

Are there any current firewalls that present the rules list in a nice easy to read format like Kerio did? As I mentioned in that thread, it would be great if there was a sort option as well, so that I could re-order the rules by drive letter, which would make it much easier to find specific rules.

 

Hi Doveman.
Maybe privatefirewall could be what your looking for...I believe it displays in a similar way to kerio.
Ive never used kerio and im just going by your screenshot and PFW looks similar.
Hope this helps slightly in your quest.

 

Hi

Thanks for the suggestion. I couldn't see a screenshot of the rules list on their website but I'll install it in a Virtualbox so I can take a look for myself.

I did try Private Firewall a while ago and didn't like something about it but it's been updated recently so I'll give it another go.

 

I think Look'n'Stop can be the goog replacement
http://www.looknstop.com/En/index2.htm
Screen from my machine

 

Thanks, it looks quite similar so I'll try that out as well.

 

Look n stop is a payware firewall.

 

Had a quick play with PrivateFirewall and it's not really to my liking as it has a very basic rules lists, with a double-click on the application required to show the actual rules, even if the application only has one.

I also don't like that the firewall popups don't allow you to customise the rule it's going to create, which Kerio did.

 

Yeah, I saw that. I would prefer a free one but if there's nothing good available I'll have to consider payware

 

The only other free firewall i can think of that looks remotely like you picture would be zonealarm which has a similar layout...sorry if its not much help but ive never tried a lot of firewalls.

 

I have used ZoneAlarm in the past and it wasn't anything like Kerio then but maybe it's changed so I'll take a look, thanks.

 

As already mentioned above Look "n" Stop is probably your best alternative to Kerio. The only downside other than it not being free is that it is no longer maintained. If your not going to use Windows 8 then you should be ok. I believe the last build of Look "n" Stop was released in like 2009 or maybe 2010.

 

Hmm, that seems pretty bad, expecting me to pay them for a product they aren't even maintaining. I saw a couple of other free firewalls but skipped them as I saw they hadn't been maintained for a while and thought that might make them vulnerable to new exploits but I might as well take a look at them if the paid alternative is the same.

It's really hard to understand why no current firewall uses the simple and clear layout that Kerio did and instead make the rules list overly cluttered/unclear and/or bury the information behind one or more mouse clicks. I guess they all want to have their own individual way of doing it, regardless of whether it makes sense!

 

You might have a look at Jetico Personal Firewall. It is basically a rules based firewall and I believe it's still maintained and supported. Has been around for many years. Very configurable. I don't know for sure, but there maybe not be a free version anymore...

 

Apparently there is still a free version.
http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-369-jetico-personal-firewall

 

That is pretty old, but yes, looks like the free one. It would probably run on XP or earlier, but may or may not run on Win 7/8, although it claims it does below.. I can't vouch for the download site though.. no idea there..

You can probably get a 30 day trial out of the current v2 release though... supports x86/x64 also..

 

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I tried Jetico and found it rather confusing but it was a while ago so I'll take another look.

They only have one not very useful screenshot of it on their website, so I'll just have to install it in Virtualbox to see what it looks like.

 

Yep, might as well give it a try.. The layout of the rules is a little different and possibly confusing at first, but once you see how things work, and get used to it, it's fine. It's a good firewall. Worth a look anyhow.

 

For free you can have also
already not developed Filseclab FW and NetVeda
-http://www.filseclab.com/eng/products/firewall.htm
-http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.html
and close to our time
SoftPerfect Personal FW and SterJo NetStalker which is not classical FW but more detector/blocker of incoming connections
-http://www.softperfect.com/products/firewall/
-http://www.sterjosoft.com/netstalker.html

 

Well I've tried Jetico v1 and that doesn't impress me with it's popups, which even if I select Custom, don't appear to allow me to set In/Out, TCP/UDP, local/remote addresses, etc, all of which I could do with Kerio's popup (it's confusing as for each application it gives a popup for Allow Network Access first and after that an Outbound Connection popup but even the latter doesn't appear to offer most of those options). What options there are are split under different expanding sections, making it needlessly hard to have an overview of the rule I'm creating, unlike Kerio which displayed all the settings in a single window.

The rules list also seems to be broken down into different sections, which makes it hard to get a view of the rules. As far as I can tell, the rules I've created in response to popups are in the Ask User section shown here but if I can create rules here manually as well, it doesn't make much sense to be titled Ask User. There's other rules under System Applications which seem to have been auto-created, which is OK but I think I'd prefer them all in one list with the user rules. Then under System IP Table - System Internet Zone there's rules for DNS, ping, etc, which again I'd prefer in one list, rather than having things buried under different sections. Whilst you might think that once the System Applications and System Internet Zone rules are initially setup you can forget about them and just look at the Ask User list, I always found it helpful to be able to see all the rules whenever I went to the rules list in Kerio, partly as a quick check that nothing had been messed with or if I should tighten up anything but also so that I could see what rules I already had when creating new ones without having to jump back and forth between tabs.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9113/jeticov1.png

Anyway, I'll take a look at v2.

 

Yeah, v2 may be better for you. It's been many years since I used it, so I have no idea how it's developed since v1... Good luck.

 

No, V2 really wasn't any better unfortunately.

I'm testing Fileseclab at the moment though and that seems pretty good and presents the rules list very much like Kerio used to. It's not perfect and I think a) Kerio's coloured arrows were a much better (more compact and quicker and easier for the user to interpret) way of showing whether the rule was Allow/Block and whether it was In/Out or both, compared to Filesclab's Action and Direction columns, b) the Application column would be unnecessary if it just put the program name in the Description column when rules are made (whether automatically without user intervention or in response to an Ask popup) as Kerio did, c) the Enabled column is unnecessary as the tickbox clearly shows if a rule is enabled or disabled, d) the Path column seems superfluous as it's just a shorter version of Full Path, e) it doesn't seem possible to add a range or list of ports to a rule, as Kerio allowed, only a single port per rule which obviously will result in unnecessary clutter as for example, allowing IE to access remote ports 80,8080 and 443 will require three rules.

Nonetheless, it seems the most sensible and clearly laid out firewall that I've found so far and is very close to Kerio. I'll keep on testing the others I haven't tried yet though, in case one of them is even better. I'm slightly uncomfortable relying on a firewall that hasn't been updated since 2005. Obviously that doesn't necessarily mean that it's vulnerable but with exploits and weaknesses constantly being discovered it seems likely it would benefit from an update.

 

You might try Tinywall, and see if you like it. I don't think its like Kerio though. I may switch to Tinywall myself when it becomes a little more configurable, and I need logging which I did not see in Tinywall the last time I looked. Maybe I just overlooked it. -http://tinywall.pados.hu/

 

This is an interesting thread and im keeping an eye on it.At the moment im using comodo firewall 6 and i dont see the application list that was present in v5 either.Maybe i havent looked hard enough but im getting what is pictured.
I cant seem to find a full list of apps like i did before.

 

I've tried SoftPerfect Firewall now but that's no good for me as it doesn't do application rules, only general port/address rules for everything.