PC Tools Firewall & Private Firewall fail in GRC Leak Test

General Topics
1

Do you know that PC Tools firewall and Private Firewall fail in GRC Leak Test(http://www.grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm). I have tested this more than once in different computers. Many Firewalls like ZoneAlarm, Online Armour, Windows 7 Firewall Control, Outpost, Comodo pass in this test.
I googled about this and found something at PC Tools forum
http://www.pctools.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-50480.html

I was surprised that PCTools firewall seems to fail the GRC leaktest, after all the most basic of leaktests (I believe the very first ever written when outbound filtering was still a novelty). However, after running Ethereal (packet sniffer) I discovered that no packets were sent to the GRC server (with which the leaktest communicates during testing).

I even ran a different packet sniffer and the results were the same.
For some strange reason the GRC leaktest keeps saying that PCTools firewall was unable to block communication attempts with their server even though no actual contact was made.


I also tried to block all traffics by PC Tools Firewall and then run Leak Test. It passes then also…

Your comments please guys…

2

I wouldn’t put too much faith in GRC Leak Test. The person quoted verified no packets were actually transferred using a sniffer, so the test is obviously flawed. Matousec does much more extensive leak and stop testing, which PCTools passes with flying colors.

3

You are right. But GRC is the oldest source of testing leaks. It also provides other leak tests where PC Tools/Private Firewall did well. I was wondering because this test is the very basic one for outbound protection test. It fails whereas ZoneAlarm/Comodo/Online Armour/Outpost passes this…