Firewall Problems

Bob.F

Hi,

for the last few years I've used Bitdefender AV and been really pleased with it.Its been excellent and I've never had an issue or problem in all that time.

I had always used Zone Alarms free firewall along side it and this combination worked well until a recent update by Zone Alarm, after which the two programs conflicted causing boot problems so I decided to buy Bitdefender Internet security 2009 with a built in firewall.

I'm very disappointed with the firewalls performance,to the point where I just do not feel secure using it.

It appears to fail even the most basic and simple firewall security tests that I've tried.

The Zone Alarm "FREE" firewall that I used previously passed these tests without exception.

Even GRC's basic firewall leak tester penetrated Bitdefenders "protection".

I'd love some feedback/help/advice or opinions from other Security Suite 2009 users.

Cheers

Bob.

Sm3K3R

Hi,

for the last few years I've used Bitdefender AV and been really pleased with it.Its been excellent and I've never had an issue or problem in all that time.

I had always used Zone Alarms free firewall along side it and this combination worked well until a recent update by Zone Alarm, after which the two programs conflicted causing boot problems so I decided to buy Bitdefender Internet security 2009 with a built in firewall.

I'm very disappointed with the firewalls performance,to the point where I just do not feel secure using it.

It appears to fail even the most basic and simple firewall security tests that I've tried.

The Zone Alarm "FREE" firewall that I used previously passed these tests without exception.

Even GRC's basic firewall leak tester penetrated Bitdefenders "protection".

I'd love some feedback/help/advice or opinions from other Security Suite 2009 users.

Cheers

Bob.

What version of BD Antivirus did you used with Zone Alarm previouslly?

If it was BD 2008 then you may try and disable the BD 2009 suite firewall and pair it with ZoneAlarm again ,to see if they behave in this combination.There are also other freeware firewalls that can be used together with BD (Comodo for example or PC Tools Firewall 5.0.0.37).

Bob.F

What version of BD Antivirus did you used with Zone Alarm previouslly?

If it was BD 2008 then you may try and disable the BD 2009 suite firewall and pair it with ZoneAlarm again ,to see if they behave in this combination.There are also other freeware firewalls that can be used together with BD (Comodo for example or PC Tools Firewall 5.0.0.37).

Thanks for the reply.

I was using Bitdefender AV v.10.

I've tried reinstalling Zone Alarm with the BD firewall deactivated but there still seems to be a conflict stopping ZA from starting up.

I do feel a little annoyed that I've bought the security suite and now need to switch off part of what I paid for and install another product to get the protection I want.

Thanks again for the reply.

Cheers

Bob.

Sm3K3R

Thanks for the reply.

I was using Bitdefender AV v.10.

I've tried reinstalling Zone Alarm with the BD firewall deactivated but there still seems to be a conflict stopping ZA from starting up.

I do feel a little annoyed that I've bought the security suite and now need to switch off part of what I paid for and install another product to get the protection I want.

Thanks again for the reply.

Cheers

Bob.

I understand you.I was using BD 10 also with a 3-d party firewall due to suite firewall weakness.

But there is a good side of the problem ,if you would had bought the BD 2009 Antivirus a lot of good features (excluding the firewall) would not be there.

So buying BDIS 2009 was a good choice even if you need to use another firewall.With a personal SPI router BD firewall is good enough .

Lets hope the new suite will come with a much better firewall.

Bob.F

OK,

I noticed that in my Windows security centre screen, the firewall was showing as switched on, but there was no mention that it was my Bitdefender firewall.

I manually turned the Windows firewall off, and made sure that my BD firewall was switched on, but it still only indicated that "a" firewall was active, there was no mention that it was my BD firewall.

I uninstalled BD, downloaded a fresh version and reinstalled.During the installation the uninstall program ran which cleaned out the old version, so I had a nice clean install.The windows security centre now clearly shows that the firewall thats running is Bitdefender.

The firewall is now stopping the basic leak tests (the GRC leaktest v.2 I mentioned earlier) which is of some comfort, although it still fails on the more cunning tests that send info by tricking allowed processes to send information.I'm assuming that Bitdefender would stop genuine malware of this type being installed in the first place?

It seems that previously it was only the Windows firewall that was active,this is concerning as BD informed me that the firewall was fully functional and running.

Could it have been an issue with me using the trial version and putting my licence key directly into that without downloading a fresh copy or wouldn't that have made any difference?

Am I over reacting here?Does Bitdefender offer a solid reliable firewall, or am I better off using a third party's stand alone firewall along side my Bitdefender security suite with BD's wall switched off?

Thanks again for any input

Bob.

Bob.F

I understand you.I was using BD 10 also with a 3-d party firewall due to suite firewall weakness.

But there is a good side of the problem ,if you would had bought the BD 2009 Antivirus a lot of good features (excluding the firewall) would not be there.

So buying BDIS 2009 was a good choice even if you need to use another firewall.With a personal SPI router BD firewall is good enough .

Lets hope the new suite will come with a much better firewall.

That's a really good point.It is a shame because I find the Antivirus excellent and the privacy protection feature is great.

Thanks for the replies its very much appreciated

Bob.

Bob.F

Now here's an interesting thing..

I've installed COMODO free firewall,turned the Bitdefender security suite firewall off, and re run all the tests I tried before, including "Wall Breaker" a test app that attempts to trick trusted programs to send info.

COMODO popped up a warning for every attempt on every test, but here's the strange thing, Bitdefender also flagged them up and stopped them using its behaviour scanner.Its did this without fail on every single test I tried.

I've retried this again without COMODO running and using BD's built in firewall and it fails.The behaviour scanner fails to pick them up and the tests fail.

In all tests completed all the BD settings were identical

How strange.