Just for the record, I have probably found out what my problem with yt-dlp.exe (youtube cmd line downloader) was.. (I wasn't able to download, even if yt-dlp.exe was whitelisted) I am on Win7 x64 with MS Security Essentials installed and I noticed MsMpEng.exe is likely the culprit. Since I whitelisted MsMpSvc (Microsoft Antimalware Service), I had no issues downloading with yt-dlp.exe.
Hi @bw4513! Thanks for posting your result, this way others can know what to try. I wouldn't have guessed that MsMpSvc is the culprit, normally if that is blocked other applications can still access the internet.
Glad to know you're doing just fine. And are you still planning to update the GUI, or are you too busy with other projects? To clarify, TinyWall works just fine for me, but a fresh and more smooth looking GUI is always welcome.
Hi @Rasheed187 ! That is not planned anymore, but more on this as soon as I release v3.3 final. I'll wait until the end of this week to see if any regressions pop up on other machines, but I've been using it for a very long time now and I don't expect serious problems.
I'm glad to hear that you are okay. If you want to go down in history, please do TinyWall, exactly as it is, for Linux. There are NO application-based firewalls for Linux. None! May the sound of happy music, And the lilt of friendly laughter, Fill your heart with gladness, That stays forever after.
Thank you for the kind words. As for a Linux port, you wouldn't be the first to ask me. But TinyWall relies heavily on Windows functionality and is therefor highly OS-specific. Porting it to Linux would be basically a completely new application. Though even for the current TinyWall, I have other plans now. I haven't heard about any problems with v3.3, so I guess I'll be declaring it final. Let me prepare a few things and then I'll come back to explain.
Apart from the different OS functionality, Windows versus Linux, is the coding significantly different when developing an app for Linux?
The "coding" (note this is very vague) itself is not conceptually different, but given that TinyWall is not a compute-type application, a significant portion of the code is interacting with other APIs, and those APIs are all different in Linux. Different GUI system, different networking layer and firewall rule handling, different way to interact with other processes etc. Even the functionality in TinyWall that could stay the same under Linux would need to be restructured to fit the new interfaces. dotNet manages to abstract a part of this (for example the interaction with the file system), but there is way much more to it than just the core dotNet libraries.
I have tried TinyWall 3.3, upgrading from 3.2.5, and now Windows update, Microsoft store and phone link are all blocked. The rules for them are still set in TinyWall but they no longer connect. I will have to go back to the previous version. I am running Windows 11 Pro and Microsoft defender.
I have now uninstalled TinyWall completely and reinstalled 3.3 setting it up again from scratch and it appears to be working properly. Something must have gone wrong with the upgrade.
Hi @tcarrbrion ! I just tried this in a Win11 VM but couldn't reproduce. An upgrade from 3.2.5 to 3.3.0 went fine and the mentioned applications remained unblocked and functional.
OK cool, no problem. I had hoped for a cool new GUI, perhaps something like Little Snitch, but I understand it would be too much work.
Okay, so here I am, after having prepared everything. In the end I also released v3.3.1 to update some translations and to incorporate a license change, but there are no code changes compared to v3.3.0. I promised some good and bad news. The bad news is that I won't be working on new features and significant improvements in the future. On fixes, maybe. During this long pause since the last release a year ago, I realized I'm just not eager anymore to work on TinyWall. It has become a little bit of a chore to be honest, and I'd rather be working on new things. And I feel this is not likely to change. If you're interested in this in a bit more detail, I have described how I feel and what lead to this difficult decision in this post. It is important for my donors to see that post, hence on Patreon. I am honestly sad, but in this case it is best to acknowledge and accept the state of things as they are. I've worked on TinyWall for 12 years and this certainly puts an end to an era in my life. But not an end to TinyWall... Here is the good news: TinyWall is now open-source! It is really not my intention for TinyWall to die, I just won't be investing large amounts of time into it anymore. By making it open-source I wish to enable others to add new features and improvements, and to even take over. As is often said, every end is a new beginning, and I hope TinyWall will now be able to become more than it ever could have under my maintenance.
@ultim Thanks for your honesty and good will by making TW open source. @DavidXanatos Take a look at it perhaps you might get interested
@ultim wow thank you for your efforts and your time, I'm still using Tinywall since 10 years, and now you open source it, unbelievable moment, i hope you will be able to check Tinywall project from time to time. best regards.
You have no idea how nice it is to get understanding and good wishes instead of complaints. Thank you all.
OK cool, thanks for making it open source and hopefully someone will continue development to make TinyWall even cooler. And let us know what your next project is going to be.
Hi @ultim - great to hear you are well. I think you've done a marvellous job, both historically and with this latest overhaul for v3.3 in preparation for going open-source. I really hope the project finds some good people to keep it going.
Thanks for all the time and work you put into this nice firewall. I hope you enjoy your more free time. You deserve it
