Enhancements to Firewall Notification Mode & Rules Overview

PureFallen

I don't have much experience with Feature Requests to Bitdefender except where i once reported a critical Bug, neither do i know if they things i gonna request might be already implemented to the 2021 Versions since i sit on TS 2020 (v24) myself until it rolls out over the Internal Update Wave.

I am myself someone who uses the "Firewall Notifcation Mode" in order to have a manual Firewall where i get to decide for each single new/changed application if it gets to communicate to the local network or internet, either to cut down telemetry etc. from programs which do not need internet connection to function or in the worst case something malicious slips through and tries to talk to home. The setting is actually more doable as it sounds like once you got past the initial week of having it enabled or have a very clean PC in first place.

However, it seems that automatic profiles (such as Gaming and Work) disable the settting temporarily. The whole thing makes sense to prevent notifications from interrupting someone in games or work, yet especially for that setting that is probably adressed for Power Users, it kinda defeats the purpose of it when having it temporarily "Allow everything" when a Profile is loaded. Not like it should happen often that something completely different tries to connect to the internet for the first time, while you play a game or work on a completely different task.

The whole issue would probably be adressable by having an additional option for "Is affected by Profiles" or giving Profiles itself the ability to enable/disable this setting, or by queue up the notifications until the profile is changed and decline them until then. For now i adressed the issue by disabling automatic profile changes in Bitdefender.

Talking about the Firewall Rules, it would probably come handy when the paths to the executables allowed in the Firewall are showed in the list as well and don't require to manually open each entry and select "Edit Profiles", as well of highlighting paths of no longer existing executables red for fast cleanups of the list. Since Bitdefender already stores the paths but also checks for their existance to display the icons of the .exe files, it should probably be doable.

meadowinthewoods

I'm just not electronically gifted, but I've never run across this problem before....& I just do not know how to handle it. I keep getting Firewall notifications for application requests. Bitdefender has never asked me for "Allow or Deny" decisions from me. I decided to block them, since this was something new to me, but there are hundreds of them.... ??? Too many to count. When I click on the request for more information, it shows that same app file request on my computer...? I looked everywhere in Bitdefender e-manual and online, but the only reference I can find is some mentions of firewall rules, etc., in this Bitdefender Community. I have not been able to contact a human being in person or found any phone numbers that have a real person I can ask questions....& I'm very worried about my computer. I keep running vulnerability scans and various updates, but everything comes up with Zero problems....except for ONE: There is a "critical Windows Update" that keeps showing up that I need to install. When I click to install it, it takes about 2 seconds and says it's installed, but next time I run the vulnerability scan it keeps coming up again.....even in just 5 minutes after vulnerability scan, it shows that same Critical Windows update. Obviously, something is wrong. I just don't have the know-how to figure out what to do about it. So here I am, bugging you...hopefully you can give some advice on what to do about the go-zillion Firewall application request notifications.... I thought Bitdefender would know which ones to allow. I certainly do not know enough to do so. Can you advise me on either of these problems? I thank you in advance you might give me.

Alexandru_BD

Hi @meadowinthewoods,

I have replied to your private message.

Regards

Scott

@meadowinthewoods you're in excellent hands with Alexandru, the only thing I would add from what you posted, is when BD Vulnerability scan shows a Windows Update to install, go directly to the Windows update from Settings and install it from there.

I would usually consider BD letting me know about an update as informational, and manually update it myself. I've always had better luck that way. If BD says it's still in need of being installed, even though you know it's been installed, restart your PC and let a day or two pass, and BD may resync with Windows and no longer display it as an issue.

Kind regards,

Scott