Question for users of Outpost free firewall

I have already posed this question on the Outpost forum and I received one response which indicated that my problem might be a bug in the Outpost program. I thought I would ask others here if they have the same thing happen with them so I can see if that is, indeed, the case. So here's my cut and paste from the other forum:

Actually, I am looking at Private Firewall as an alternative. It looks quite similar to Webroot in its interface and it's free now. It also gets a pretty good rating here: http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

At the moment, I'm giving my laptop a couple of days to settle down after 2 uninstall/reinstalls and several reboots in a short space of time. I am not a big fan of doing a lot of that to my computers, I think you just end up with a big mess. It would be nice if the next firewall I install on this laptop is the one I end up keeping.

I've been running with the Windows Firewall behind a router, but we want to start taking the laptop with us when we travel, so it needs a decent bi-directional firewall. And one that plays well with Malwarebytes.

 

OK, I've had a couple of responses to this on the Outpost board, and it looks like it is a software bug which happens in the paid version as well, and not to everyone. But it appears to be a problem with Outpost itself.

So, you Outpost users: don't use that properties button until the next update.

P.S. I'm kinda thinking of giving Private Firewall a try. It looks more configurable than Outpost, actually.

 

g'day Amethyst_08

if you are thinking of replacing your firewall i had a look at private firewall and it doesn't appear to be that reliable,that's just from some of the reviews i have read.
there are some really reliable and easy to use freeware firewalls available that you can choose from, here are just a few you can look at " http://www.majorgeeks.com/Comodo_Personal_Firewall_d5033.html " . " http://www.majorgeeks.com/Online_Armor_Free_d4872.html ". " http://www.majorgeeks.com/PC_Tools_Firewall_Plus_d5470.html ". these are the most popular,worth a look hope this helps good luck.

 

Actually, Private Firewall does quite well here:

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php

Not the top, but not in the 'not recommended' category either.

Hard decision. I want something that works, doesn't cause system instability, allows internet connection, and something I don't have to fuss, tweak, and fight with all the time. (Like ZoneAlarm used to be back when it was just a nice and top rated firewall.) Comodo--not it. PCTools...maybe, but reading the user forums is rather off-putting. Maybe I'll join that one and see how cleanly the product uninstalls. This is where Private Firewall falls short, apparently.

 

g'day Amethyst_08

looking at those ratings i am surprised to see comodo internet security free so high up the list for something that's only relatively new.i was using AVG free with zone alarm firewall but have since switch to comodo as it use less resources.
the review i read on private firewall at http://personal-firewall-software-review.toptenreviews.com/private was on version 4 so i must admit it was a bit out dated with version 6 being the latest.

 

<sigh> I have spent HOURS reading up on all these things, and I am amazed at how complicated using a firewall has become. It would be so easy for a person to allow the wrong thing and leave themselves unprotected. I just want something that works and that I don't have to fight with. The lazy way out would be for me to just try ZoneAlarm free on the laptop, simply because I'm familiar with ZA's settings and it's pretty easy to use. But if ZA doesn't work properly, it can be a total beast on someone's system (crashes, freezes, slowdowns, blue screens), not to mention its poor rating with Matousec.

MS has some big updates tomorrow, apparently, so I'm not going to do anything until that is dealt with and I can see things are working well. I think some time away from all the research will do me some good, too.

 

Someone on this forum said PC Tools is "idiot proof", maybe that's the one for me after all!:-D

I'm going to give it a few days of thought anyway. I like my stable laptop, and I sure hate to mess with that, but it's got to have another firewall when we leave home and are out from behind our hardware router. It does look like you can choose different profiles with PC Tools for that sort of thing.

 

Thanks for the link, Plodr. I'm going to hang onto that. I remember ZA back when it was free and simple and "just" a firewall and all it did was monitor internet traffic.

 

Well, Plodr and Iwunderdownunder, I finally installed PCTools Firewall Plus v 6 yesterday. A couple of little hiccups, and there's something I'm still trying to sort out with shared folders. If they can't solve it on their forum, I'll try the networking forum here. Actually one of the developers over on the PCTFP forum did a lot of work on what I mentioned over there re shared folders, so I appreciate that.

And the length of time it takes to load my personal settings after I log into Windows has gone up a LOT. It now takes over a minute, whereas before it was maybe 5 or 10 seconds, but I noticed Zonealarm SS had done that on my desktop, too.

But otherwise, I like it. It didn't pester me with too many questions and actually brought something to my attention that was engaging in an activity it definitely didn't need to be, so I blocked that with no harm done. Nothing is crashing or freezing or arguing. A person can look into things quite closely if they want and fine tune things to a degree I don't understand (), or just leave it be and let it do its job.

In all fairness to the Outpost developers, one of them actually contacted me about the bug, although as a user of the free software, I wasn't entitled to that. I thought it was nice of them anyway.