Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

@alexandrud
What do you think about adding Group>Temporary Rules (valid until...) to the group name column? The group name would still be Temporary Rules, but a note would be added, immediately visible in the main rules panel window.

 

Would be a sensefully improvement. So +1 from me.

 

This is already available in the Description column. Just show the Description column from right click context menu on the data grid header. Isn't this good enough?

 

Ahhhh, one thing more that I didn't saw or remembered

For me that's really enough!

 

That's enough, but I'm not letting you off that easy! Move a temporary rule from a temporary group to a permanent one, and the Description will leave "Rule valid untill:...". It makes sense that this field would be cleared in that case.

 

I agree. I will implement this "huge" request

 

not sure what is going on.... it never happened before somehow ccleaner able to bypass WFC. Tried reinstalling and tested previous WFC version but all resulted the same. Anyone knows what is going on? How did ccleaner bypassed the firewall?


Medium Filtering, Secure Profile, Secure Rules all Checked/Marked

This is frustrating as hell, as now I'm not even sure if I can keep using WFC.. I'm not sure what went wrong. If anyone knows why it happened please guide me on where to start troubleshooting.

-------------------------
I deleted all the rules and set WFC to high filtering. CCleaner still able to access to the internet.. is this an exploit? or my windows firewall is broken?


Anyone can download CCleaner and see if it happens to your firewall too? to verify if CCleaner to connect to your internet despite setting windows firewall to high filtering

 

I don't understand why did you hide the details of the blocked connections Below are mine, source address is anyway a private IP address and destination is Piriform server which is public anyway. This is not a WFC problem.



I can't reproduce this on my side. CCleaner stays blocked if outbound filtering is enabled in Windows Firewall (Medium Filtering profile in WFC). Are you sure that at 14:33 your profile was set to Medium Filtering profile and not to Low Filtering profile?

Open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc) and navigate to Applications and Services logs > Microsoft > Windows > Windows Firewall With Advanced Security > Firewall and check for events with ID 2003 before 14:33 and see the status of Windows Firewall.

In the screenshot below, this is one logged event recorded when I switched from Medium to Low Filtering profile so that I can install something that required Internet connectivity.

 

Thank you for responding!

Honestly.. I'm not sure what's going on either. It's a strange situation

 

This looks strange. Firewall category with 0 events, I never saw that, unless Windows Firewall as a Windows component is broken on your machine.
- Do you have only 3 rules? With only those 3 rules, can you use Chrome to open web pages?
- Do you use another firewall or security software that acts like a web proxy that redirects the traffic to the proxy instead of Windows Filtering Platform?
- Other programs are blocked or allowed? Are you sure this is a CCleaner problem and not a more general one?
- Did you try a machine restart? On my side it makes wonders because I usually reboot once in 2 weeks.
- Do you use any VPN? If yes, which one?

 

I cleared the events.. I am using nordvpn.
Other programs are blocked correctly with WFC
CCleaner cannot be blocked despite setting it to high filtering.. it still able to access the internet. Do you think windows firewall is broken? I have restarted the machine dozen times before. do you think I should attempt to dism restore health?

I will try sfc /scannow and dism to restore health to see if it helps


Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hzQLw75FlzjfrHYbRh0LngLtYevo0h72/view?usp=sharing

this is the Portable CCleaner I'm using.. could you please test it? to verify if this exact program i'm using able to bypass windows firewall.

 

Try to google "reddit nordvpn bypasses windows firewall". You will find interesting discussions. As I mentioned, not related to WFC, but to... yes, again NordVPN. Check here the same problem from 4 years ago, also with NordVPN.

From my experience with Windows Firewall and VPN providers, the ones that I've tried and which played well with Windows Firewall were: TunnelBear, Mullvad VPN, Malwarebytes Privacy.

 

I uninstalled nordvpn and WFC is working as intended now.. You were right, NordVPN is the culprit. Thanks! now I have to figure how to use nordvpn with windows firewall, anyway thanks for your time! Appreciated it.

 

You could always use the Windows built-in VPN with ikev2. I've used that with nordvpn and wfc. Just change the adapter to only accept maximum encryption.

 

Windows Firewall Control v.6.8.2.0

Change log:
- New: Redesigned the global hotkeys to support more combinations.
- Fixed: WFC installer was updated against exe hijacking vulnerability.
- Fixed: Moving a temporary rule to a different group name does not clear the outdated description.

Download location: https://binisoft.org/download/wfc6setup.exe​

SHA1: fdb4138a6c525855b4248b0f83c1bc1bcdebdc50
SHA256: d125c0eeca6b8dcbbc00811aa5f24cf75514e0d0dc4ff32e4a7745beb5b5000b

Thank you for your support,
Alexandru Dicu

 

@alexandrud
I repeatedly come to the conclusion that there is a need to add the creation of temporary rules directly from the rules panel, with a box for manually entering the time interval (5 minutes, 12, 75, etc.).

 

Would it be possible to enable the ability to mouse-scroll through popup WFC notifications, ideally only needing the mouse cursor to be hovering over the notification window? This would be useful when dealing with a stack of notifications without having to use the keyboard shortcuts (which are still useful separately) or having to click out of the currently focused application. This would enable the ability to quickly cycle/scroll through the notifications to quickly access the most pertinent one (often the most recent).

Or, another proposal would be enabling the option of changing the sorting of WFC notifications, allowing them to be reversed in a most-recent-notification -> descending ordering. Currently, when you click to the end of the WFC notification stack -- i.e. the most recent program/notification -- as soon as you dispatch that notification, WFC drops you back to the beginning of the stack.

It'd be useful if there was an option to change this, as often times I ignore non-pertinent notifications, until there's a notification(s) I need to allow, which then necessitates scrolling through the stack, sometimes multiple times.

Or, if a user-settable option of notification display ordering isn't possible, what about the ability to enable keeping the spot in the notification index ordering, e.g., if you dispatch notification #4/7, you're then presented notification #5/7, for example.

This would be amazing actually.

 

I will add these improvements (mouse wheel and index reset) in the next WFC version. Thank you for your feedback.

 

Hi...
WFC 6 8 1 0
When I right click an .exe file to enable 'block through windows firewall', I no longer get a message of confirmation. Is it a normal (new) behaviour ? Thanks.

 

Thanks on new update to WFC!

 

Try to disable and enable again that Shell Integration checkbox and try again. Is the rule created and only the notification missing?

 

Thanks.
(Update to 6 8 2 0 :same behaviour)
Disabling/enabling shell integration did not change the situation (though without reboot).
And yes the rule is created, it is the notification that is missing.
edit
Running W10_21h2
This could be since the update to this version, update that I performed 6 weeks ago. But, I can't be affirmative 100%

 

Uninstall and Reinstall : no joy...same thing!

 

Nope reinstall can still use old config file and data.
Some program can got bug or corrupted and reinstall cant help you need do total uninstall delete files manuały which M$ will miss/skip during uninstall.
Usual files are in %program file and %appdata, sometimes need find some registry if need.
Cant say same thing...

 

?? Nothing new for me, I am not a beginner. And how do you know the way I've uninstalled? Your message does not help at all.