Firewall GUI is still confusing, contradictory and complicated

Discussion in 'ESET Smart Security v4 Beta Forum' started by mauricev, Nov 25, 2008.

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  1. mauricev

    mauricev Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2008
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    The firewall GUI in the Remote Administrator program is still confusing, contradictory and complicated.

    First off, why is it when the rule dialog first appears that some columns such as the Names columns are truncated?

    Now to describe the chaos regarding these rules, I don't even know where to begin.

    Let's see, if the second rule "allow all outbound traffic in the policy-based mode" were turned off, then how could there be separate, specific "Allow outgoing" rules available given below that? That second rule in effect already turns them on, so what do these other rules do? Are they overriding the second rule or vice-versa? This is a contradiction.

    "Block all unknown outbound traffic" and "Allow all outbound traffic in policy-based mode" are contradictory.

    Similarly, if I have "Allow initiated inbound traffic rule" turned on, what happens if I have "Allow incoming responses from the DNS server" turned off? These rules are contradictory.

    What does the "policy-based mode" refer to in "Allow all outbound traffic in policy-based mode"? Aren't all these rules affecting policy-based mode already?

    How can there be a rule to "Block incoming NETBIOS requests" and another rule to "Allow incoming NETBIOS requests in the Trusted zone"?

    If I delete a default rule, how do I get it back without changing any other settings? Better yet, remove this concept entirely. Make these rules always be present. If that doesn't make sense, then redesign the UI until it does.

    The bottom line is that it makes no sense for some rules to allow and others to deny. There has to be a default starting point that either allows or denies that serves as the basic policy and then the subsequent rules serve as exceptions.

    There doesn't seem to be any way to change the order in which the rules get processed, yet it seems the lack of this based on the frequently contradicting rules demands it.

    A default blocking policy implies that there should be default rules to allow other common protocols such as HTTP, POP3, FTP, etc.

    Second, there should be an organizational distinction in the UI between what's affecting the local trusted zone and the global, untrusted network.

    Third, the same goes for the port ordering of the rules in the UI. They should be organized in some logical fashion.

    Fourth, there should be a way to globally set the rules, for example, a low/high security mode.

    Overall, my suggestion is to hire a professional UI designer to work with the firewall engineer to come up with a more logical, coherent UI.
     
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