Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

Discussion in 'other firewalls' started by alexandrud, May 20, 2013.

  1. Alpengreis

    Alpengreis Registered Member

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    WFC does not support variables in paths. We had already discussed that long time ago. Perhaps the situation now is another and Alexandru could implement this? Let us wait for his answer ...

    However: as workaround you have to resolve the path variables. One possibility is:

    1) Open a command prompt
    2) type: echo %var (for your first example: echo %test
    3) integrate this resolved variable in your desired path and create the rule
     
  2. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    Unfortunately, the problem here is not WFC, but Windows Firewall API which does not support this sign in the paths. You can't define such not even from WFwAS. The fix should come from Microsoft.
     
  3. Alpengreis

    Alpengreis Registered Member

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    Ah ok, that's really not sensful from MS that the WFwAS GUI supports variables and the API not ...

    However: thanks for clarification here.
     
  4. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    Windows Firewall Control v.4.8.8.0

    Change log:
    - Improved: "Add to group" from Rules Panel contains now, besides the group names of the existing firewall rules, also the authorized group names.
    - Improved: The dialog that confirms if a new rule was created from Shell Integration was restored and will be displayed again.
    - Improved: The logging was extended for better debugging.
    - Fixed: "Click to allow/block" dialog can be resized even if it shouldn't.
    - Fixed: In some circumstances, the installer may give an InvalidDataException during the installation on Windows 10.
    - Updated: The user manual was updated to reflect the new changes.

    Download location:
    http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
    SHA1: 4abc8060f2b6a157a50899da14719a449578248a
    SHA256: d3f1f1f4b0b3fbb4dfc7de839a43519204e0df8fbdbd0863e9757fc701e0d20f

    Best regards,
    Alexandru

    The current list of features to be implemented is open to new suggestions. If you have something in mind, please share your thoughts. I know that some features were mentioned in the past and which were not implemented, but like many of us, it is hard to follow the entire thread. Thank you.
     
  5. Mr.X

    Mr.X Registered Member

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    Is it possible whenever opening Connections log, to automatically refresh itself every n seconds (customizable @ user choice)?
     
  6. Cache

    Cache Registered Member

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    Apparently not.
    From the Help File:

    wfc.PNG
     
  7. Mr.X

    Mr.X Registered Member

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  8. nameless

    nameless Registered Member

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    If you can click "refresh," it can refresh automatically. It's possible. It just wouldn't be a great idea to have it do so every 1 second. But making it optionally refresh every minute or 2 minutes seems reasonable to me. But what do I know?
     
  9. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    I will give it a try to see how it works, but the idea is that the Connections Log can't be used like a real time connections monitor.
     
  10. gfx400

    gfx400 Registered Member

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    I have tested the 4.8.7.2 beta version for the last days and the activation was lost again after reboot. There were no new events logged.
    But the Startup type Delayed Start fixed the problem. Now there are only some Events with ID 200 'Can't connect to Windows Firewall Control service. The service is not running.' This seems to be normal, since the service starts delayed about 2 min and after it is started the event does not appear again.
    So, with delayed Start type the activation is not lost anymore. Thanks a lot for your help.
     
  11. sipertruk

    sipertruk Registered Member

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    Hello I'm a donator since a few days, nice software.

    Little bug today quickly after computer start I was customizing a rule and all wfc windows became unresponsive. With alt-tab i could see a popup window announcing 4.8.8 but it was stuck behind the customizing window that I couldn't move so I had to restart wfc.

    Something is bothering me, for a specific software after setting up rules for connections I want there's no efficient way to prevent more popup notification for connections I don't want. There are 2 cases if find it annoying :
    - a software tries regularly to access something on a web cache server whose IP address can change every time (akamai ..) so creating a blocking rule every time is useless.
    - a software act like a local port scanner trying every local port it can, this seems like a bad design but still it exists (example : Guild wars 2 game installer it's freely available, also steam in a previous version did that, vivaldi web browser I was told I haven't tested this one). What's good with wfc is that the notification system is light enough to not do a local denial-of-service like with another firewall controller in beta state I tested. But still after adding a blocking rule the pop notification can go on for one hour displaying all attempts it had registered and nothing a user can do to prevent that as far as I know.
     
  12. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    A real-time connections monitor is not needed, there are other tools that can do that. BTW, is it possible to make WFC display the Win Firewall settings, like incoming and outgoing connections as found in the Control Panel?
     
  13. Azazal

    Azazal Registered Member

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    I have the same problem. After installing the latest version, activation is lost after a reboot. Never before has there been such a problem. I have Win 7 64bit
     
  14. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    Thank you for reporting the problem with the update notification. I will fix it.

    How to stop entirely the notifications for a program?

    Let's say that we have a program for which we already defined an allow rule for a specific IP range only. When this program connects to a different IP a new notification will be displayed for it which is correct. But we don't want to see a new notification for this program because we wanted to allow just a specific IP range and that's all. To disable the unwanted notifications for a program do the following steps:

    Create a generic outbound block rule for the same program and disable the rule. Then go to the advanced notifications settings and check the check box below:


    upload_2016-10-27_7-21-27.png

    I recommend you to read the user manual. This extract is from there. It will answer you a lot of questions.
     
  15. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    If you mean these:

    upload_2016-10-27_7-29-2.png

    they are already included in the description of the profiles, but in a different words. I would say no.

    Try to set the start-up type of the service to Delayed Start and see if this helps.
     
  16. Azazal

    Azazal Registered Member

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    It works, but too long to start. I think back to an older version.
     
  17. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    It has nothing to do with the older vs. newer version since the code regarding the activation is the same. The problem is probably another software that prevents WFC service from reading some system values during the boot time. Creating a delay seems to work, but for the majority of the users, the activation status is read properly and there is no need for this delay. I will do some more changes in code to see if I can create a workaround.
     
  18. sipertruk

    sipertruk Registered Member

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    Thank you for your answer. This works well for the 1st case, but not for the 2d involving a software opening a lot of connection seeking an open port. Allowing all, blocking all, blocking & disabling, closing, nothing makes the notifications stop until the queue is empty.

    On another subject it would be nice to display the full command line or parameters, maybe in the .exe tooltip. I'm thinking about rundll32.exe, cmd.exe, javaw.exe, runas.exe.. sometime the process terminate before the time it takes to read the notification, no direct way to know what was running (apart the parent process that gives a clue).
     
  19. guest

    guest Guest

    I would like to see some traffic bandwidth features If is feasible, you can take other features from here.
    https://www.glasswire.com/features/
    The purpose would be to monitor what apps are consuming more bandwidth.
     
  20. Alpengreis

    Alpengreis Registered Member

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    No, please not, sorry! WFC is and should stay a GUI for Windows FIrewall Advanced Security only with some extra "firewall-related rule-based" features.

    For other things we should use other programs/tools.
     
  21. Mr.X

    Mr.X Registered Member

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    I do agree. A sound "No, please don't"
    Hope @alexandrud does too.
     
  22. alexandrud

    alexandrud Developer

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    For the 2nd case, I will do some more tests because it should work.
    WFC does not monitor processes and can't retrieve such info. It can't find the parameters that were used when other processes were launched.
    WFC does not monitor any connection or process, so it is impossible to display bandwidth of certain processes. Also, I am not a fan of fancy looking applications.
     
  23. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    It's not a big deal, but I wanted to check my settings and noticed that I couldn't get this info via WFC. Would be handy if this was possible.
     
  24. PunchsucKr

    PunchsucKr Registered Member

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    Hey alexandrud, just wanted to express my thanks for this wonderful product.

    I am going to leave the notifications to low until it makes enough rules to allow routine basic tasks then switch to the recommended level (which is working beautifully)..except for RDP connections within my lanm, can't seem to connect to any desktop/laptop.. Any help would be appreciated.

    By the way, had a small issue that the browser is hidden from view when it is launched in order to get activation key. Had some minor inconvenience on my small screened laptop. The same thing happens when the user manual is launched, the manual blocks the application gui. Oh and a special thanks for this offline old school user manual!! It's sad to see inexperienced users directed to search hijacked webpages of "get help with <insert MS product name>" like search terms. Shame on MS.

    On windows 10 64 and 32 bit.
     
  25. jwcca

    jwcca Registered Member

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    There's also "Networx" from
    http://www.softperfect.com/
    so there's no need to include the functionality in WFC.
     
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