Privatefirewall - awful results in comodo leak test..

I switched from Privatefirewall to Online Armor. OA gets a perfect 340 score with the Comodo Leak Test and is low on resources.

 

That really it, whilst I like to monitor every edit and whats going in and out net-wise, not every user on this system will be 100% sure of what to allow or block if questioned. I know privatefirewall can have individual options for each user (obviously lessening the amount of pop ups would suit them ideally), but by having one user set to an auto response mode for most queries and another user with multi queries, isnt going to be the best for the system in terms of protection overall, even if both set to high protection mode. I suppose I wanted a firewall that simply gave good results after a short term amount of training if i couldnt have it all - I doubt that theres really one out there! These leak tests were my first consideration into searching for that one firewall. I had issues with ZA on vista before, which has probably made me far more wary in what one to go for.

I might give that a go just for the sake of it to find out my results, ill probably get 120 again and find out its my system thats at fault, lol
Update-after increasing my network protection to high in privatefirewall, I get 280. With OA free after installation, leak test also 340/340.

 

On my test machine, I was able to get it as high as 290 out of 340

To be honest, that is quite good compared to other firewalls I've seen.

 

This thread's title is obsolete now, I guess.

 

See - doing your security homework pays off

 

ZA is only 11th in matousec's security challenge. Im surprised Online Armor isnt there at all, but I think its due to matousec having past issues with OAs original developer? I wonder what comodos excuse might be in its own software not getting top marks in its own leak tests. If they insist its because its an old out of date program that needs updating, I would like to know their excuse of still having it on their own website and still noting it as being very useful, lol

 

If it is such an out of date program then why is this very thread in existence.?
Why is such creedence given to its results.?
Personally this test does not show a real world scenario because aan alert would be blocked at first sight in a real world test.

 

OA and Matousec had a falling out a few years back. Spat was over Matousec testing methods which since have been well publicized. OA was a pioneer there. Prior to the fallout, OA and Comodo would altenate as no. 1 in testing. I would also be not surprised that Comodo was a behind the scenes factor in the split. Comodo and Matousec are just was to cozy for my liking.

Also in those days, OA was an independant org. and not part of Emsisoft as it is now. The pairing of Emsisoft Antimalware and OA seems to have mutually beneficial both for Emsisoft and end users.

 

Privatefirewall is free and have all in one.( hips, good settings,port control..etc)
In my opinion the best free firewall.

I want to see at fw easy interface and navigation, easy approach to configuration.
Privatefirewall is better than new Comodo 6. Outpost ss free, as we all know ,is short version of pro and that is very bad solution. O Armor too.

Privatefirewall i can see is very light and don't eat ram

comodo leaktest is 300/340 (more than good)

greetings to privacyware

 

I want to use Privatefirewall, but it doesn't pass Shields Up!! Till then I will use ZA.

 

Hi !

I read the testresults from Matousec´s "proactive security challenge-64", and saw the good results for Private Firewall, so i was thinking about using it instead of Comodo.
Actually i´m using Windows Firewall together with Comodo´s HIPS (Defence+) only, firewall disabled, since Comodo (officially) doesn´t support WS2008-R2.

After reading this thread i decided to check Private Firewall myself.
Running WS2008-R2 on my testsystem i got 270/340 with Comodo´s Leak Test (CLT).
And that was after having "maximized" all settings....

That´s bad news, but even worse, it fails Gibsons "stealth test" !
One port (53) was open, a few others were "stealth", but the rest was closed, meaning my computer was "visible".
I also checked with PC Flank, same result....
I have never used Private Firewall previously, so i don´t know if this is some problem with the new version or if it has been the same with older versions too.
But one thing is sure, do not use it !

 

@Hackerman1.
I believe this firewall needs to be configured properly to pass the dubious shields up test and even though i dont have a lot of experience with this firewall i can certainly imagine there is plenty of documentation to achieve this goal.

On another note.If you do enough research you will come to the conclusion that stealth is a marketing gimmick and there are plenty of resources to show this.
One thing i do know for sure is the personal support for this firewall is top-notch and you will rarely find this support in other products.
Even though im not using privatefirewall at the moment i would reccomend it highly and if you look at the matousec site privatefirewall is second in the results.

 

@reevs.
You say PFW is better than comodo,outpost,and apparently we all know this as a fact according to you.
Would you care to bring forth some factual clear evidence to back this claim.?
Incidentally the matousec website reveals that in fact comodo is better if test sites are your forte that is.

 

And how would you "configure" it to be stealth ?

Really
Where did you read that ?
It´s a wellknown fact that a computer that is "visible" is open to attacks...
Of course you can call it what you want, but "stealth" is a good, commonly understood term that describes that a computer isn´t visible on the net.
Is it a "marketing gimmick" if a softwarecompany tells you that they have a firewall that works as it should ?

Who said anything about support
Neither CLT or Gibson test the support...
Personally i don´t care about how good the support is when the product doesn´t work as it should, failing a basic test.

If you read the information regarding the "proactive security challenge-64" on Matousec you will see that they don´t test for incoming traffic, the test is about outgoing.
And that´s why i wanted to see how it performed with other tests like CLT.
Yes, i have seen the previous version of PF as #2 on Matousec (for some time), that´s why i wanted to try it...
I´ve been waiting for support of W8 as i soon will be using WS2012 (which is not the same O/S), but if PF works on W8 it might also work on WS2012.

btw. If you do "some research" you will see that the testresult on Matousec is for PF 7.0.28.1....
The comments dated 2012-08-07 !

Clue: when was the latest version released...?

"PWI, Inc. – the vendor of Privatefirewall

2012-08-07 (Privatefirewall 7.0.28.1 scored 88 % and took 2nd place): Thank you Matousec for this latest testing effort for Privatefirewall and your continued commitment to security software vendors and their customers. Overall, we are pleased with Privatefirewall's improved score of 88 % and #2 ranking, but now have our attention focused on addressing the COM based and other vulnerabilities that remain.

Greg Salvato
CEO - Privacyware
"

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge-64/results.php

Bottom of the page....

A short clip (header) from the testreport:

"August 7, 2012
Tested product: Privatefirewall 7.0.28.1
Product vendor: PWI, Inc.
Testing platform: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 9
Number of tests: 110
Level reached: 11
Total score: 88 %
"
http://www.matousec.com/projects/pr...s/PSC64 report - Privatefirewall 7.0.28.1.pdf

It would very interesting to see the results for the latest version ( with support for W8 ) !

 

@hackerman1.
What a lot of nonsense.
There are many users of privatefirewall that can attest to its effectiveness and funnily enough you seem yourself to have entrapped yourself into a state of utter confusion on this matter.
At one point you say the firewall is not working as it should and then in the next breathe you give nothing but appraisal based upon a matousec test which you yourself stated doesnt test the firewalls correctly so your statements need ironing out into a clear and coherant form and then the matter can be discussed with the fullest and most precise information at our fingertips.

And as for your views on "stealth" well that is a bit of an enigma in itself and if such a condition existed then we would simply not be able to communicate and you shield yourself in the greenness of the stealth gimmick which has been presented to you by one website.

Kaspersky for instance does not employ this stealth into its firewall and your most welcome to visit other forums and the general consensus would seem to be that a closed port does not make you insecure and judhing by your comments on this subject it would seem apparent your not aware of this but would rather believe test sites and what they dictate to you and punish a product purely because you have not bothered to configure it properly.

My sincere advice to you would be to do some research on PFW and enquire from people who are using it with the utmost success.

 

Beethoven: start by reading my previous post above which i updated before you replied....

 

I have posted this previously. You need to look at all the default rules PF generates.

Check the UDP port 53 rule for svchost.exe. I know in some prior versions, it was set to in/out i.e arrows pointing both ways. Change it to outbound only. For added security, change the destination IP to the address where you DNS server resides. This is usually your router IP address i.e. gateway address.

Then rerun the stealth tests.

 

@itman.
Have you a link to your post please.?
Also any online guides to configuration of PFW would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

 

I don't use PF anymore for reasons I don't want to publicly discuss.

I don't know of any stand alone guides for configuring the PF firewall. There are numerous postings in this forum on how to configure PF. I thought the firewall rules were a bit loose so I manually tightened them up when i used the product.

I will state that when I used the product a year ago or so ago, I passed all stealth tests with the default firewall configuration. But as noted below, all that is being tested is your router firewall.

Note that when your doing these common stealth tests, what really is being tested is your router firewall. To test your software firewall, you have to temporarily turn off your router firewall or configure it to pass through all IP traffic.

 

1. I don't belive matousec guys, they never response on ''hot question''.
2. I mean the best free firewall is PF free. Comodo is complicated with 6 version and have ''shild front'' gui as kaspersky, version 5 cis is much better.
3.Outpost free is too short and have no many things as we all now.

PF is easy and have good protection. HIPS is something what annoy and i don't want every 3 sec. click on notification and thnink what is happening in registry every moment.

PF don't eat ram ( only problem it is start up win it take almost 5 min.) eg. winXP 1.5. ghz 1gb ram.

 

Does ZA still block pcflank as a spyware site?

 

One of my systems is running the latest ZA free and it passes the pcflank test and does not flag the site as a spyware site.

Also, ZA with SpyShelter kills the Comodo Leak Test with a perfect 340 score.

 

Be careful friends, many things on internet are pure spyware. head up and your back to the wall

greetings