[Exclusive] Windows Firewall Control Review and Giveaway
#6
Thanks to Binisoft team & tarekma7 for this rare & wonderful giveaway.

Microsoft Windows 7 and Vista already got a built-in default, free and powerful firewall but its mostly for the technical minded. Without proper interface & not enough knowledge about features this is tricky to properly configure. If it's just to control outbound traffic from programs, Windows firewall add-ons are fairly simple & this nice little app makes it simpler. It runs in the system tray and allows user to control the native firewall easily without having to waste time by navigating to the specific part of the firewall. This is the best tool to manage the native firewall.

Reason we need a strong firewall set is in current technological age we live with hackers & identity thieves who could after a 5 minute period could walk through any commercial grade firewall. Hardening a firewall with other programs primarily with WFC from Binisoft is the way forward esp for users who still use Windows 7/Vista. Binisoft have since developed WFC into Win10 & Win8, 8.1 & other versions. Back in the v.2. this was an executable little file less than 200kb. Since then in the current version what WFC has kept is the simplicity but added the necessary features as time & windows versions evolved.

The utility provides quick access to some important features built into the operating system: Windows Firewall with Advanced Security for analyzing and tweaking expert inbound, outbound, connection security and monitoring rules, Event Viewer for examining event logs, together with Resource Monitor for keeping track of CPU, memory, disk and network utilization. This is one aspect why I really liked WFC. Apart from obvious one click block or allow parts best features are:
  • Shell integration into the right click context menu of the executable files.
  • Import and export the policy of the program.
  • Protection to unauthorized uninstallation.
  • Possibility to restore previous settings at uninstallation.
Rules can be secured by automatically ignoring the ones created by other firewall tools aside from Windows Firewall Control. Plus, they can be memorized for the next system logon. Global hotkeys can be assigned to swiftly bring up the rules and primary panel. The IP address reputation of URLs can be easily verified, while a file's integrity can be checked by calculating its SHA256 hash.

Recommendation:
When I first used WFC several years ago I recall there was very short help options being available. Since then help section have improved but would like one explained in laymans terms for inexperienced/first time users.
Personally I have suffered phishing attacks from bots & phishing urls so would like if particular ip addresses of incoming phishing urls can be identified & blocked immediately in the high filtering. My rule set were always on high side & I created a large list which in turn sometimes made it unresponsive. Hope to see this problem is fixed in recent versions.
If a set of rule can be implemented as machine learning for certain programs which require outbound connections would be great. That way I won't have to customize another rule set for it. I checked the notification setting of learning mode for digitally signed programs but would like it for unsigned/beta stage dev programs & as a filtering profile.
Is there any way WFC can incorporate databases of phishing sites & urls already provided by several adblocking /spyware & malware blocking program entities & keep it with regular updates as they occur? This way I would not need a separate program. I like the verifying ip address rep part & want it enhanced with auto-blocking if a url is known for phishing or malware. This should be in a list in the tools section along with virustotal or whois checkup.
Would like confirmation on when automatically rules are deleted after set time/when I clear old logs.
Used to get changelog can not resolve application path for some executable progs hope its fixed.
Would DEFINITELY like if 1 or 2 registered features now come in the free version. Like setting up upto 5 temporary rules.

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RE: [Exclusive] Windows Firewall Control Review and Giveaway - by tregs_beales - 08-06-2017 , 11:21 AM

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