simple firewall for windows

[Guest]

so I am using Avast Premier, but my subscription is going to end next month, I only use it because of the firewall...
what I find interesting on the avast's firewall, is it's simplicity: you open the firewall, application rules and it shows a list full of drop down menus, where for example if I click AVG technologies it shows a list of all the processes related to AVG.
I tried Zone Alarm, but it's too complicated, for instance it shows all the processes randomly, it does not makes groups like Avast does so that you can identify what process belongs to program X... and than, blocking the process 1 by 1 is a pain in the ^^ and let's not speak about those trust level, outbound level, inbound level, bla bla bla, I don't even know what tha heck are they talking about with that lol...

so, any Idea where can I find a good solution for me? having the feature of creating groups of processes related to program X is useful but not required, I just want something that has 2 checkboxes in front where one is for allow and the other is for block, that's all...

 

[Supermuncher85]

Haven't used a software firewall in years. That's what my router is for.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

so I am using Avast Premier, but my subscription is going to end next month, I only use it because of the firewall...
what I find interesting on the avast's firewall, is it's simplicity: you open the firewall, application rules and it shows a list full of drop down menus, where for example if I click AVG technologies it shows a list of all the processes related to AVG.
I tried Zone Alarm, but it's too complicated, for instance it shows all the processes randomly, it does not makes groups like Avast does so that you can identify what process belongs to program X... and than, blocking the process 1 by 1 is a pain in the ^^ and let's not speak about those trust level, outbound level, inbound level, bla bla bla, I don't even know what tha heck are they talking about with that lol...

so, any Idea where can I find a good solution for me? having the feature of creating groups of processes related to program X is useful but not required, I just want something that has 2 checkboxes in front where one is for allow and the other is for block, that's all...

https://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/firewall.php

 

[Guest]

https://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/firewall.php

Nope xd... Comodo for some reason does not works on windows 10, also though about Comodo free firewall, but despite comodo says it's fully compatible with W10, windows 10 says comodo is not compatible and does not let's me install the program... Comodo was the first firewall I remembered of, I used to be happy with Comodo on W7

 

[Guest]

Haven't used a software firewall in years. That's what my router is for.

yeah but my objective here is not protection, is blocking some programs from accessing the internet. my router has it's own firewall but I can't access it because I don't know the password

 

[Nymical]

yeah but my objective here is not protection, is blocking some programs from accessing the internet. my router has it's own firewall but I can't access it because I don't know the password

If you are using Windows 10 and your needs are that simple, you could simply use Windows Firewall. Not good for that much, considering how much you need to manage it, but if you are OK with setting up and maintaining your Black/White lists then it is perfectly fine. If you need anything more advanced you can block entire outgoing port connections somewhere, but I don't know where in Windows 10...

 

[Guest]

but how do I monitor in real time? there is no real time monitoring available on the windows firewall afaik, and my problem with applications is not blocking one's because I find it not beneficial, but because it's consuming my internet, that's the main purpose. sometimes I am doing things that are connection speed sensitive (for example: testing a program's download speed, and I can't have a program wasting the internet and changing program X values...), so having real time monitoring is essential for me.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://www.zonealarm.com/software/free-firewall/

 

[Guest]

http://www.zonealarm.com/software/free-firewall/

if you read the description of my topic, you would noticed that I already used Zone Alarm and didn't liked ^^ you should start reading the descriptions, otherwise happens the tipical situation of a user saying "I already restarted my computer" and than comes a guy that actually works for the company "have you restarted the computer?" (example taken from microsoft forums)

 

[lfkfkfkffs]

I really don't like running software based firewalls on any of my systems. But the only one that I can think of that doesn't get recommend that often is this one http://www.privacyware.com/personal_firewall.html Unless you go paid you won't have to many more options. The next round up in free would be using an old computer or making a small footprint VM on your computer and setting something up like pfSense, or osrouter with a security onion. But for the most part the type of firewall that you are asking for normally only comes from paid AV programs like the one you have with avast. I know bitdefender has one but if you're windows 10 their firewall has always caused me issues so I disable it.

 

[Guest]

If you are using Windows 10 and your needs are that simple, you could simply use Windows Firewall. Not good for that much, considering how much you need to manage it, but if you are OK with setting up and maintaining your Black/White lists then it is perfectly fine. If you need anything more advanced you can block entire outgoing port connections somewhere, but I don't know where in Windows 10...

you're right. windows firewall is good enough for me, has this page where it shows all programs, I can block programs from there. only realized when I decided to know more about windows firewall, so I watched a video about this feature and it's enough for me. thx.

 

[Nymical]

only realized when I decided to know more about windows firewall, so I watched a video about this feature and it's enough for me. thx.

lol, sorry it took 2 months to solve your problem.
If you have any further needs I recommend System Explorer task manager replacement, which I find quite handy and includes many monitoring functions which are spread out in Windows native. thanks for the +1, in any case lol

 

[shmu26]

for just monitoring, nothing could be better than glasswire.
for actually making the rules, use binisoft windows firewall control.

 

[Guest]

for just monitoring, nothing could be better than glasswire.
for actually making the rules, use binisoft windows firewall control.

I've tried those already. don't like them xd.
glasswire is NOT a firewall, as it states, it's a monitoring tool, as you said. Windows firewall control does not let me see in real time what is consuming bandwich. I need to make rules, yes, but they are rules blocking known TCP connections uploading/downloading, I don't want to block an entire program, just some connections. for example: I have program X downloading from 4 different links. I want to block the 3 link and keep 1, 2 and 4 downloading. those are my intentions, that's why I was using avast premier, because of that but it turns to be too expensive to pay so much for just a feature like that.

so to solve my issue, I learned how to use the Hosts file, and as well as using a TCP connections viewer. so now whenever I want to block a program, for example, from phoning home, I just copy the link and paste it on the Hosts file.

but thanks a lot for your suggestion anyway, WFC is a great app for managing windows firewall, but I don't agree with glasswire, there are lots of better programs - and developing teams. I was a user of glasswire, the program is not updated with something noticeable for months (at least when I was using it) and the dev team is always justifying the delays and lack of features with "we are a small team located in India" but truth is that I left using Glasswire when they released several updates that were updating nothing more than components and doing 2 or 3 bug fixes... they need to update their mindset and make glasswire better if they want to be big someday and quit the crappy excuse of "we are a small team located in India". (sorry for this off-topic part).