Outpost Firewall Pro 7.5 killed by Avast! 6 installation (repost)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
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This is actual repost of my post on Agnitum’s Support Forum. I was going to rewrite this post but there isn’t much sens to do it and I’m too lazy ;). Here it goes, I hope that someone will help me with this :slight_smile:

I’m using Outpost Firewall Pro since version 6.7 came out and I’m happy say that I haven’t experienced any major problems with this software. Than came versions 7, 7.1 and finally 7.5. I must say that 7.5 release is real improvement in terms of performance especially for “Web Control” component (BTW Pop-up windows ware batter in previous releases ;-). As most users of OFP I run some AV software to complement OS security. The AV of my choice is… or was Avira’s free anti virus. Few day ago they decided to release SP2 for their product with bundled toolbar form ASK.com… to make things short it was time to change AV to something else. After removal of Avira’s AV I decided to install Avast! 6. Installation process went smoothly it was time to reboot. And then the horror begun… :-(. OFP (7.5) was busted by Avast installation. System tray shield icon for OFP was gray with “service not available…” or something similar. Avast worked fine. After an hour of searching in the internet i have found info that could solve this problem. It was a compability issue (at least i thought so back then) and all i needed to do is to add OFP to Avast exception’s list + disable some option in behavior shield of Avast. After reboot there was no change. This time I’ve launched Process Explorer and found that acs.exe was consuming 50% o CPU all the time. This time i decided to boot into safe mode and use clean.exe for OFP, boot again (safe mode) use avast uninstall utility, boot again (safe mode) and use Avira registry cleaner utility. After another reboot to normal mode i ran avast installation before clean installation of OFP 7.5. Avast installed OK (reboot) but OFP didn’t install process was faulty. Installation process went smoothly until it got to the point where ACS service was started and again acs.exe was 50% all the time and i have to kill whole OFP installation process tree. After reboot it was the same thing. Tray icon gray, acs.exe at 50%. After few hours of rebooting, uninstalling, cleaning etc. I came to last available option that could succeed and that was installing OFP in safe mode. To my surprise installation process stalled in exactly same way as in normal mode (starting acs.exe and 50% CPU usage). This time i have made a screen shot of the process installation tree and saved log files of OFP after killing whole process tree and after first reboot into normal mode. At that point I gave up and tried to downgrade to 7.1. There was no problems, installation went OK, and avast in running in background without problems (only file system shield is installed). I’m using Windows XP SP3.

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First install Outpost Firewall without spyware (do custom installation untick spyware only) then reboot and install avast.
Its that simple

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You might also want to untick “Web Control” feature in addition to anti-spyware, as it is known to interfere with avast!'s Webshield.

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I would say its better to install avast first then outpost, also untick web control and spyware.
Once outpost is installed and before rebooting add C:\Program Files\Agnitum\Outpost Firewall Pro\wl_hook.dll to the exclusions in avast file system shield, easyest to copy from here and paste straight to the exclusions, then reboot and make sure that all the avast processes in the application list are set to allow all.
No need to disable or add anything to the avast behaviour shield.

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Well web control is an important feature and I myself is using it with avast free with no conflict at all since 2 year.
And if avast is first installed then this feature will not be there.
Web Control blocks referrer, ActiveX,Java Script,VB Script,ADS, + Many many more and that without conflicting with avast. I am using it and that’s why recommending it. It also blocks private data going out of your PC to internet in any way by any application.

add Outpost Firewall Pro folder to exclusion or only wl_hook.dll file in the avast realtime protection exclusion.

Thanks
Ash

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Ashish Singh you know why the web control feature is disabled if you have avast installed first ? because it can conflict with avast ::slight_smile: A firewall should be exactly that ( a firewall ) the other restrictions you mentioned can be controled with your browser and av.
If you have been using outpost for two years then why did you need advice from DavidR in febuary for exclusions ???

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@Ashish you don’t need Outpost web control because they both conflict with Avast webshields so Outpost web control is not required at all, when you install Avast first on your PC and then Outpost second it will automatically detected your Avast that Outpost won’t install web control and anti-spyware at the installation but you still have to check it during the installation set-up.

So please removed Outpost web control if you don’t believe me ask DavidR he’s been using Outpost longer than me, and he has better experience and understanding how Outpost set-up correctly along side with Avast :wink:

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I will put it as plainly as I can.

First Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro has never had an adverse effect on avast on my system and that is going back from version 3.0 through 7.5.

Second Outpost will detect Avast if you have it installed and ask for confirmation that you have it installed. When you acknowledge that it will offer to run in Compatibility mode, disabling the Web Control and Anti-Spyware (as avast has both covered) and to avoid conflict. Why otherwise would Outpost suggest it.

So that is why you should install avast ‘first’ followed by Outpost firewall pro 7.5. I would go a step further and suggest that you do a Custom Install (may be called expert install or words like that), Outpost will still detect avast, but you have greater control of what gets installed (not just disabled) so you should uncheck the Web Control and Anti-Spyware modules so they aren’t installed.

Outpost during the installation would have you exclude the Outpost program folder, cheat and say you have as I don’t feel it necessary to do this. I do make one exclusion in avast, File System Shield, Expert Settings, Exclusions and that is for C:\Program Files\Agnitum\Outpost Firewall Pro\wl_hook.dll and nothing else. I have had no problems in the past 7+ years like this

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DavidR is this correct see attachment ???

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I hope you dont mind me replying Speedy but yes that is the correct exclusion :slight_smile:

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Thanks just checking :wink:

Cause I forgot about this to add in the file system shields since I had Outpost install for a while when I removed Comodo FW.

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For me I have it excluded in all three columns, R, W and X, though as far as conflict goes X is probably the most important.

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Thanks DavidR :wink:

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Well I am using both avast with web shield and Outpost with Web Control without any conflicts. And I have asked agnitum support about conflicts and they said it does not conflict rather it is disabled because avast scans web pages and as per their forum request. But I find Web Control useful as if harmful elements will not be loaded in my browser then there is 0% chances of infection (if avast fails to detect some malicious elements).

Agnitum people have also given me tricks to enable web control if its disabled due to avast installation.

Although every people have their own point of view

Thanks

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I honestly can’t understand why you would go against the advice of Agnitum and its compatibility mode, however that is entirely your choice but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for all.

Why do you feel that you need tricks to enable both, the outpost web control really brings little to the party that isn’t already covered by the web shield. By Agnitum people giving you the tricks, I take it you mean the outpostfirewall.com forum rather than official Agnitum support, if so they aren’t Agnitum employees, but users.

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+1 Pay attention to DavidR he has more experience and understand how the software works between Avast and Outpost together trust me cause I can see a huge difference between both software, otherwise you’re not learning and you do look like you’re talking to yourself in the mirror 8)

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Well I haven’t got a huge in depth knowledge of the inner workings of Outpost Firewall Pro, but I have been using avast and the Outpost Firewall for over 7 years.

The major thing is just check out the features in the web control and compare with the web shield and see what else it brings, virtually everything it has is covered by the web shield (ans script shield), other than blocking adverts, big deal, that is in every browser that I have ever used.

So as I said it brings little to the party other than possible conflict, not just with the Web Shield but the Network Shield’s Malicious sites blocking ;D

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DavidR you’ve got over 7 years experience using Outpost mean you have a greater understanding how it works where most people don’t (true or false), and as for me I still learning Outpost Pro since I’ve been using Comodo FW for nearly 5 years as Comodo starting to heavier on XP. And I’ll bet you any day that Ashish has so much to learn between Avast and Outpost which means he hasn’t master it yet :wink:

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Agnitum just relased OFP 7.5.1 and all I can say it fixed my problems with OFP 7.5. All I can say is that with 99% probability Avast wasn’t responsible for my problems.

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I would tend to agree with that.

I have just installed 7.5.1 on my XP system, install over the top of 7.5 and I have to say I’m disappointed. It recognises I have 7.5 installed and offers an update and then ploughs ahead and installs the Anti-Spyware and Web Control, despite a) I did a previous custom install (unchecking the anti-spyware and web control modules) and b) even though it recognises avast, which I acknowledged and I still got the sodding anti-spyware and web control modules even though I unchecking them again.

So I have ended up doing a clean reinstall (yet again), using Expert mode to get rid of the cr*p anti-spyware and web control modules.

If I have one thing against outpost it is the pathetic update policy, why they just can’t do an in place user interface program update like avast and numerous other without having to download the full installation is beyond me.