I think most of you didn't read about the topic starter not wanting a firewall that piggy backs on the Windows Firewall. So tools like GlassWire, TinyWall and Windows Firewall Control are out of the question.
Oh well. This is a discussion about "Good Windows Firewall that's free" that was started six months ago. If the OP hasn't gotten the info he wanted by now, he probably never will. In the mean time it appears that other people may be reviewing this thread who are interested in firewalls and aren't concerned about what ever restrictions the OP is/was. For my part, I most likely did read the topic starter, six months ago, anyway. Since then I probably haven't read the topic starter each time another reply was posted over the months, and may have forgotten the specifics, and just replied to the latest posts instead of castigating whoever else may have replied without reviewing the specifics in the half-year old topic starter. Thanks for straightening us out!
By the way, getting back to the topic starter; does anyone have any references as to these hidden WSH rules that can't be locked down, and the problems they cause? I couldn't find much about them.
this thread is pretty old now, so I cannot remember where I referenced them from, but you are right I couldnt find much information either. I have ended up keeping the dns client service enabled but with a very low max ttl. Although I might revert that behaviour as there is extra overheads to uncached dns lookups that have to access the dns client first to see if exists.
Yes I understand, I just thought it was weird that people seemed to completely ignore the wishes of the topic starter. Or perhaps they didn't ignore it, and weren't aware of the fact that certain tools are not true third party firewalls. So I think it was worth to mention this either way.
well - i see rainbow all over, and flowers and - BS WFN is capable to do this since 2011, why not considering that WFC4 (see other thread) can do this too? some ever asked? What are "modern apps"? "Apps" as microsoft call them? Or regular programs? Windows Apps introduced in win8 wont run when the windows firewall is off. period. regular programs can request external dns - my dns service is also disabled and i have inserted a dns request rule (port 53) for all zones. concerning WSH there is reason why MS is hardening the behavior of services. thats why i asked what may wrong with the windows firewall - no firewall = no apps, with firewall = WSH. no need to be rude to people with other thoughts and other question to determine the real problem. dont know? then better be quiet! HTH
I think I have some more info on this. I have recently disabled dnsclient service again as it does slow down uncached dns lookups (vast majority of lookups given how popular sub 10 mins TTL is now days) and then noticed when I was running some testing on IE that the firewall blocking dns lookups to my router, of course my lan ip range is whitelisted in my firewall so this is the internal rules again. I then discovered this issue only occurs when enhanced protected mode is enabled in IE, that mode makes it run in applocker containers vs the normal protected mode with low integrity, so my conclusion is where as previously I considered it limited to web store apps, I actually now think it might be anything in the appcontainer that is locked down to only allow dns lookups via the dnsclient service. I may test this later by enabling applocker mode on chrome.
I don't know, perhaps there is, but outside my knowledge. Anyways if you have tried to operate Windows firewall as a 2 way, then all your precious rules surely get deleted after installing TinyWall. TW takes care that it is the only one who can control Windows firewall. I am on W7, but the same firewall. If you have used windows firewall just with default settings there is not much to loose, really.
yes i agree but it's not the best idea if you do plan to install for month or use like default front end of windows firewall but just in case , i would like to backup all the default and created windows firewall rules i guess they are stored in the registry thanks
* monthly image is mandatory here * yes, stored in registry - no good for unexperienced users - and not working this way. * read again my previous posting please
Yes. RunAs admin "Windows firewall with advanced security". On the left click inbound rules which show the list. Then, also on the left, right click inbound rules and select Export. Do the same for outbound rules.
Yesssss! I routinely image every week, & retain images for 3 months (FIFO). I also do an additional image whenever I install a *complex* app. Imaging has saved my anatomical nether region several times from such as hard drive failure, hard-to-uninstall security app, slow or weird-acting computer, my own dumb actions, etc.
I am now using ZA Free firewall on two computers- both Windows 10. I feel much more comfortable with it than I have with any that I have tried so far. I'm stoopid, right?
Please look at Task Manager & give me cumulative CPU time for (a) Zone Alarm FW, & (b) System Idle. Thanks!
No, you are not. ZA historically was never very much welcomed within the wilders community. It is a rather simple firewall that does the job mostly silently but that is not very much appealing to a specialised audience that wants more granular control on settings, behaviour and manually override decisions.
Fax, I haven't used Z.A. Pro for a couple of years now. By any chance.... do you know if they have solved the problem with their log file? I remember seeing it ballon in size to something like 10 GB's. Thanks.
Uuuhm, they can only go balloon when you have a conflict with the system or ZA databases (where settings are stored) become corrupted. Normally they are rather limited in size and they are periodically zipped by ZA automatically (zipping will radically reduce the size as they are just text files). So it is normal to have MBs of logs but not GBs.
Well, it seems to be fine for me. I remember I used to use it years ago- probably Win 95 or XP. I liked it then too.
Read this about a good firewall - http://www.digitalcitizen.life/5-reasons-why-windows-firewall-one-best-firewalls
