Your opinion of Online Armor Personal Firewall

Good point.

Thats only the paid version.

 

I agree with Pete and Low as well.

In order to optimize the HIPS in OA the user must be in advanced mode:

In that mode in addition to run safer there are 9 permissions possible and 3 settings within each of those, ask, allow and block.

As well, the user can use 5 protection settings on or off.

So if a user fully trusts a program he can allow all 9 and turn on 5 permissions and not use run safer.

Then save those settings and away you go.

But if this freedom was allowed to all programs on my system I may as well remove/ disable the HIPS entirely.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

My thought would be to have a gamer high risk PC with nothing NB on it.

Then my other secure PC would be for real life use not games.

IMHO

 

Hi Escalader,

Are you referring to the Program Guard Advanced Options?

If so, you do not need to be in OA's "Advanced Mode" to use these settings. I'm still using OA Free and just go to OA's Programs and right-click on program (row) and click the "Advanced options" from the context menu.

Unfortunately for me OA's Help "Descriptions" for the "Program Guard Advanced Options" does not provide enough info on how/when to use the Program Guard Advanced Options.

Also, unless they've made changes to recent beta versions, per Mike Nash:
"If the program is trusted OA will simply give it whatever permissions it requests - after all - it's trusted. So, advanced mode options don't really apply to a trusted app."

 

One malware attack vector is to replace and then pretend to be a valid executable. If a valid file is replaced by a malware program with the same name don't you want your security software to warn you that the file has changed?

 

Working on it

 

On the paid version ( not the +AV) I should not have said "need" since when user switches into standard mode he/she can still adjust/tweak/optimize the "advanced" options on programs. A bit confusing advanced within standard.

On this point again the free options I'm unsure of. In the paid versions the user CAN tick a box and unhide all the programs. One they are visible, the user can adjust the "advanced" settings. I have done it with FF and IE 7.

There is some guidance on the browser settings in my learning thread here, have a look.

 

Quick questions:

1) does it limit Gigabit ethernet throughput (many heavy FW do, even some light ones like Kerio 2.x does)

2) When under a heavy traffic (incoming outgoing in multiple hundreds) - does it use a lot of cpu time (how much % avg of a single core)

3) What is the maximum memory usage for a system that is almost always on (no reboots) and is constantly under heavy network load?

I understand that the "network speed" issue was resolved with the latest beta, but my questions are a bit more specific in their nature.

Anyone?

This FW looks really interesting.

 

Once the firewall rules have set themselves up, and provide you are not logging the traffice with OA, you should not notice any slowdown.

Tested with torrents for example by many, and found that with the next release again - hardly any CPU subject to it setting up the rules and not logging the traffic.

I reboot my machines (well, turn them off) when not in use, so I haven't any real data here... however, I think these tests would be interesting so we might get someone to get some real figures.

 

Thanks for the comment Mike.

I will probably test this for my next build later this spring. Very promising piece of sw.

 

My 2 cents, I have been using the free version for a while now and todate has worked flawlessly on my XP Pro system with Kav 7.0.1.321 and a-squared anti malware running real time that today I purchased a 2 year licence of the suite, so hopefully I can forget trying different firewalls and I have tried most,I guess its a thumbs up from me

 

The same here. Tried the free and worked so well that I bought it also.

 

Well everyting seems to be running smooth as of right now.
Just recently swiched from Look'n'Stop to Online Armor.
I like the added HIPS also.I've used SSM,ProSecurity and some others,always to many popups though.
I bought OA back in version1 but removed it after a while.(don't remember why)
But OA v2, Avira and GeSWall in realtime is working for me.
With an occasinal scan with Prevx CSI and SuperAntiSpyware.

So my opinion of Online Armor
Two thumbs up.

 

It looks easy to use. But I found it resource heavy as far as dos programs are
concerned. It made my dos program run at a stand still.

 

You posted that in another topic as well.
Maybe you can post it a third time but then with facts and figures?
And what is dos? Or do you mean Disk Operating System?

Gerard

 

Yes I think he means DOS from 1995 computers.

 

Hi Lassar,

I answered you over at the OA Forums - I request you to install the latest pre-release beta of OA. It's stable , just not quite release ready - there were some issues in the released build of OA and we're working towards solving them all prior to release.


Mike

 

I have just bought Online Armour 2.1.0.85 and it certainly looks very good.

I'm not sure how many of the features I will actually want to use. On an old machine having everything turned on slows program launches down ( Example Paperport will open in 6.5 sec but with OA it takes 11secs) So Initially I will only want the Firewall. If I want to install on other machines is the free version just as good if I only use the Firewall ? or would I need to buy more copies.

 

Thanks Peter - I have a number of things to test.

Just ran a file system scan and 2 files were picked up as untrusted.
(1) called £59,800 25 years assuming 12% interest rate is a quicken quote saved as a text file in 2002 (2) The other was a word doc that I had type some passwords. 2006 No other program has ever questioned these files

Is the program picking up on file names or content ?

 

This scan is done with the AV+ version I think (since you bought the product I'm guessing you bought the one including AV scanner)?

 

Best on the block. I have tried several and this is the best. Go to http://Tallemu.com for info. Special promo right now on paid version. $15 off with OAFEB promo code

 

My opinion can be read here:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1195670&postcount=29

 

Thanks for comment, says more about your system than about OA.

Gerard

 

Hm, not just my system. 3 other people faced the same problem:

http://support.online-armor.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3316

If you read the thread at OA forum they say build 95 should resolve this. It did not.

Any chance to get the money back so I can buy a decent product?