Avast Antivirus & OutPostPro Firewall - Security Problem?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I currently have Avast and OutPostPro on my computer for protection. Avast seems to be an excellent antivirus program with very good ratings. I also have OutPostPro for my firewall. It is also rated highly effective and can run on my 64-bit Vista HomePremium system. But with both running I seem to have bumped into some security problems:

  1. OutPostPro has disabled it’s Web Control due to Avast compatability issues. This seems to allow a “ping” reply from my system. I see no way to stop the “ping” with Avast. According to Shields Up, the “ping” response allows my computer to be found.
  2. My browser privacy check has failed and I am advised to get a firewall. In addition, the PC Flank Leaktest failed. These failures are interesting in that the PC Flank website appears to favor OutPostPro for privacy and lists OutPostPro as only one of the two firewalls that can stop the PC Flank Leaktest.
  3. On several occasions, the Trojan - Trojan.Dropper/Gen - has made it into my computer. SuperAntiSpyware (purchased) has caught it with each scan. Why is this getting in through Avast and OutPostPro (which has a spyware component that is not disabled).

You can see the versions of each program I use below along with the basics of the security tests.

My questions are:

a) Why are Avast antivirus and OutPostPro firewall incompatible? Many, many firewalls and antivirus programs run together fine.
b) Which program should have something to seal these holes? It seems one or the other should cover these issues. I suspect these issues may also exist with one or the other running next to other antivirus or firewall programs.

Suites are nice, but they can fall short in one area and still be the best in another. I would like to have the best of both worlds and should be able to pick the items I like best. For each company, their suite parts are sold individually for this reason.

Because Avast is free to use personally for a year, I am/was willing to check it out and purchase it if I find it to hold up to it’s reputation. On OutPostPro I have 22 days left for the free trial. I am/was going to buy it in the next several days, but these issues need to be worked out before I am comfortable with the purchase. I also want to see how each company is willing to work for their customers before I make my purchases. I am sending this to both of you. Please let me know what you find.

Thank you.

Firewall: OutPostPro Trial Version 6.5.2509.366.0663
Web Control disabled due to compatibility issues
Antivirus: Avast 4.8.1296.0

A) ShieldsUP!
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Checking the Most Common and Troublesome Internet Ports

Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since “Ping” is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.

B) PC Flank
http://www.pcflank.com

1 ) Browser privacy check

The test checked if your web browser reveals any private information while you visit Web sites. Usually such information is: the last site visited, your locale and who your Internet Service Provider is.

Danger!
While visiting web sites your browser reveals private information about you and your computer. It sends information about previous sites you have visited. It may also save special cookies on your hard drive that have the purpose of directing advertising or finding out your habits while web surfing.

Recommendation:
We advise you to get personal firewall software. If you already have a firewall program adjust it to block the distribution of such information.

  1. Failed - PC Flank Leaktest
2

If you check my signature you will notice that I too use OP, I allowed the OP Web Control to be disables and I have no idea why OP introduced this compatibility pop-up.

Previous OP versions and the web shield (should I have chosen to run them) had no compatibility issues, all of a sudden with OP 2009 agnitum introduce this, so you would really have to ask them why as essentially how the web shield works hasn’t changed since it was introduced in avast.

The web shield quite openly used a localhost proxy to scan http traffic, I really have no idea how the OP Web Control functions, but if it used a proxy then you would have to manually set the two to work together, perhaps that is why agnitum decided to introduce this compatibility pop-up to simply disable the web control rather than require any manual co-ordination. The web shield is relatively easy to set it to co-ordinate with other localhost proxies (like ad blockers, etc. so long as the port number used is known, but OP keeps this close to their chest, if they use a proxy at all).

I also disabled the OP anti-spyware module not because there are any compatibility but in previous OP version it was very noisy and scanned hundreds of files on boot, which caused avast to scan the same files, slowing boot.

I don’t know if this is more an issue of OP and Vista64 bit, it took agnitum a long time to release a version for Vista32 so I don’t know just how compatible OP 2009 and Vista64 really are. But this is pure speculation on my part as I use XP Pro 32bit and have no issues with either GRC or PCFlank test.

However the PCFlank test is a bit rubbish as it is recommending AdAware Plus a flawed application, in firefox I have third party cookies disabled, session cookies enabled (CookieSafe add-on) and Flash cookies, set to safe levels. So to me this shows that the PCFlank test knows nothing about my system setup.

3

Thanks for the information DavidR. You are the first to respond to my questions. I did send the same questions and information to OutPost, ShieldsUp! and PC Flank. It will be interesting to see what other responses I get (if any). After a few weeks I will probably combine the responses and send the information to each party. Maybe it could provide some help to others.

I did not know the history of other installed versions of OutPostPro. I wonder why the change in strategy. It is not great to hear about the slow down at start-up if both antivirus programs are on. I suppose there is no way OutPostPro’s antivirus can be disabled at start-up but run when connected to the net? I do know two antivirus programs together do not always work well. I wonder why you can have two or more antispyware programs running together - even encouraged - but not antivirus?

I do like the design of the control panel on OutPostPro (if only the Web Control section worked). Hopefully they will answer me. I am on a trial version and they state their paid customers are answered first (fair enough).

It is interesting that PC Flank has a Forum that you can join (I did), but right now I do not have rights to post. Hopefully I will get posting rights after the weekend. I did send both PC Flank and ShieldsUp! an e-mail. PC Flank really does push certain programs. Are there affiliations between PC Flank and others?

For anyone: if you know some other really good test sites for computer protection, please respond. I really do want the best security I can get.

Thank you DavidR

Francis

4

Check my signature, using this setup and latest OP Pro with web control turned on(with customized settings) i get a pass on every single test on the pcflank site. I never got the avast! incompatibility message myself so i never turned web control off. Working fine over here.

5

You’re welcome, not unusual to get a quick response in the avast forms, my experience of the outpostfirewall.com forum is less than impressive.

You say you are using outpost Pro not it is my belief that only the Outpost Internet Security Suite had the AV and I am not talking about that but the anti-spyware module. So exactly which version of Outpost are you using ?

I think PC Flank may be trying to sell AdAware ;D as the link on more info has a Buy Now option, I’m always ware of results when there is a possible hook to buy something.

6

I passed all test at PC Flank, I don’t use any third party firewall now and use only windows firewall with Vista firewall control and its so simple. I had to many problem with Outpost pro and I was never leaving Avast.