outbound protection - aka network access

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello forum!

Regards to Tech, DavidR, Eddie, alanrf, mouseme, Polonius and all of you who have help me in the past :smiley:

Since I been using avast! I haven’t got any virus incident - for about 2 years now, so I think this talks a LOT about this product and of course the people working behind it. No matter what av-comparatives says, I know the truth - LOL :wink:

My current post is to ask you all if any of you knows a simple, light-weight outbound firewall, network access manager or so to compliment WinXPsp2 built-in firewall.

More than a firewall itself, I’m looking for a good network access manager like Ghost Security Suite’s AppDefend -GSS-, which is also a very good HIPS. My only complaint with it is it’s still in beta stage and it don’t work well with Fast User Switch, something that’s being addressed in it’s new alpha release, AppDefend 1.2 (or so).

So, having a good rock-solid firewall like WinXPsp2 built-in one with avast! and SpyBot’s resident TeaTimer, I just need and app that take care of wich appz can and cannot access network. I like GSS very much because it’s even lighter than Notepad, LOL - you know, any 3rd part firewall are allways harder on resources than alg.exe (Windows built-in one), but I can’t find anywhere a single simple application that just take care about applications accessing network resources… HEY! what you say to add that functionality to avast!!

Thanks a lot 4 reading this, love you all
Martin

2

Hi Martin,

If you search the forum you’ll find lots of opinions about firewalls. I use Comodo and Zone Alarm (on different computers, of course). I think Comodo is better than Zone Alarm but ZA is a little easier to use.

I’m not familiar with Ghost but I have tried Prevx and Spware Terminator. I found Prevx effective but too heavy on resources and was happy with Spyware Terminator until it started blocking things, like my firewall, that I would have preferred it leave alone. I’ve moved away from HIPS at this point but would be interested to know your experience with Ghost if you end up trying it.

3

Hi mauserme

GSS is just great, but I mean great, you know - and I’m not making any money with this. GSS is to HIPS like avast! Pro to AV’s… and I used 4 a while NOD, and Avira -very good one-, BitDefender, CA’s, Panda, all of them, you name it… but I keep coming to avast! 8)

For what you say about Prevx, Cyberhawk and so on applications, I’m 100% with you and that’s why GSS stands out of all of them; if you use only one account in your PC, an admin account -like 99% rest of mortals running Windows- just give it (and you!) a chance and try it, I’m sure it will blow away your brains like avast! did with me, LOL 8)

GSS works at rootkit level with an incredible low system footprint, and I mean LOW, just below 2megs or less, can’t remember very well now, with 00% cycles ALL the time. It’s like it is coded enterily in assembler, I don’t know…

GSS let you control tipic things like applications behaviour, run, read, write, launch other appz, network control, drivers installation, rootkit installation, disk access, registry manipulation (the RegDefend module) and so and so and so on. This tiny app gives you total granular control of your system and with your expertise I’m sure you will like it at first glance. You can ‘allow’ actions, ‘block’, ‘allow always’ or ‘block allways’, you know; also you can edit per-application rules.

To get it check it out at ghostsecurity.com [I’m sorry if I’m wrong ‘advertising’ the url here - please let me know so I don’t do it again]

Thanks anyway for your help, give GSS a try and please tell how it goes.

This Topic is still open for suggestions anyone may want to do, any help welcome :slight_smile:

4

What do you say about Spyware Terminator?
I just discovered it but seems to be quite big’n hard on resources to me - 40+ megs of ram with GUI open and 10megs when in tray. Also, always some % cycles used.

The good thing is it seems to offer a very complete protection… need more research.

5

i think this Appdefend is alot like Process Guard… the downside is that this kind of apps are not really for the techies… ::slight_smile:

6

Hi WuLfe

While GSS, PG, Cyberhawk or DefenseWall might all seem very similar, GSS is light-years ahead the rest of them not only because it uses near zero resources but the rich feature set it have. I tried some time ago PG, SSM and DefenseW too and I really know what I say ::slight_smile:

And… yes, GSS, Process Guard or ANY app like them are all for experienced PC users, I definitely don’t recomend them to my mom or even my less-experienced friends, nor the average PC user that thinks Windows is a part of the PC - as many think these days, as if Windows were a transistor attached to the mobo.

(May be it’s not so far a future where PCs are bundled with a core chip with built-in Windows, but thanksfully that’s not happening today!)

For such people there are products like NIS, CA ISS, McAFEE ISS and so on: every single them are mammoth that literally kill your PC but ¡hey! seems the price you must pay for an automated full protection ::slight_smile:

7

Well, as I mentioned, I liked it until this

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=25813.msg210779#msg210779

8

Thanks!