Firewall - Info about BLOCKED items is useless ... 2 issues

1 - You need to add a "copy and paste" feature to the text info in the firewall warning popup window..

Explanation - the firewall popup warning window asks you if you want to "block or allow" an app to access the net,,, but what the app actually is is a mystery to the average non computer user, for example i basically got this firewall popup message

" windows/s...ectProvider.exe is sending a tcp"

I have no idea what the above app is by the info provided by the firewall,, and my guess is that the average person out their dont either.., We cant even copy and paste it into google to get info about what it is,,, BD's Firewall popup text cant be copied and pasted, it wont allow a simple copy of the above text so i can paste it into google search.
Please if you can make the text in firewall warning window able to be copied to a clipboard that would be helpful to us in making our decision to block it or not.

2 - "View application" does does not provide enough info to help you decide to block or allow firewall access.

Explanation - when i clicked on "View application" for the above mentioned app it opened up the "system 32" folder which had a gazillion folders in it all of which had confusing names which the average non-computer geek would not ever understand (i have no clue what these computer lingo names on these folders mean or are ) ... and to make matters worse the name of the above mentioned file "windows/s...ect provider.exe is sending a tcp" was no where to be seen on that list in the system 32 folder either..

in fact i dont think Bitdefender's popup firewall warning window even shows you the full proper name of the application that its asking you to block or allow. for example the part in the name that has the dots " S...ectProvider" is this really the full name of the app or are the dots ",,," hiding part of the actual name ? an incomplete name might just make it even harder to look up on the net.

so with that kind of info or "lack of " info being given to the costumer how are we ever supposed to make an informed safe decision about blocking or allowing software to pass thru bitdefedners firewall ???

i think even some of bitdenders updates got blocked by me because their names did not plainly state that they were "Bitdefender related" so i did not recognize them as safe to allow, so i unknowingly blocked them. you may want to consider a identifier of some sort on all you updates so we know its bitdefender related so we can allow it and not block it.

Conclusion - you may need to consider a better method for your costumers (who are not computer programmers) to identify what should or should not be blocked by the firewall.
Usable information methods for the average costumer , such as easy copy and past to help the costumer research on the net the questionable apps integrity. And make the the "VIEW APPLICATION" feature actually highlight the exact folder in the computer that contains the app in question, so that the customer can at least see and identify the exact suspect folder and then with that info they can use the internet to find out if its safe or not to allow it ....

as it stands now the info that the firewall pop-up warning window provides is absolutely useless in helping us decide if the app is safe to allow or not. its all just a bunch of computer geek lingo that is meaningless to us... safe, not safe, who knows ???

I'm surprised that at least a simple copy and paste of the full name of the suspect folder was not do-able in the Firewall popup info window.

hope these ideas help you to improve, and us to use your product....cheers.

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Comments

Mike_BD

Hello @Clapton and thank you for sharing in such detail your thoughts on the firewall UX. We not only appreciate this kind of feedback (which is a testament of your involvement) , but we will also make sure to harness it and communicate it further down the product line.

@Alexandru_BD let us check this out .

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Clapton,

Thank you so much for your comprehensive feedback, we'll put it to good use. We collect and send product ideation, valuable feedback and recommendations from our members to the developers regularly and your contribution is highly appreciated!

Best regards.

kesegy

I have to agree with Clapton. The shortened file name in the notification is completely and utterly useless as it only shows the start of the filepath, ..., and then truncated name and extension. So we 100% need to click View Application to get any kind of actual information on what the file is, is it digitally signed etc..

Also, since the majority of time the View Application is opening the System/Win32 or the Temp folders without pre-selecting the file in question (infuriating because of hundreds of files in those directories making us search for this whose filename we don't even know!!!), sometimes the file is already gone from the temp folder after clicking View Application so we don't even know what it was (in case of some setup.exe or similar files trying to phone home during a program installation etc)

At least:

1) give us a tooltip that appears when hovering over the truncated filename in the notification which would show us the full filepath and filename.

2) do NOT truncate the full filepath and filename - in this case this information is vitally more important than saving visual space in the notification dialog

3) make explorer.exe pre-select the file inside its folder when we click View application so we don't have to hunt it down among thousands of other files

Thepipe

100% agree with this post. I recently switched from Norton 360 to BitDefender and am still getting used to BD, but seeing that it handles alerts the same anemic way Norton did is infuriating! It does users no good to get only a very small part of the file name when presented with an alert. And what makes it worse is that the "View Application" link in the alert box doesn't show you the file!!! It only opens the directory where the file is without highlighting it!! WTF! That's like pointing to a forest and saying, "The tree you're looking for is in there." It's an extreme disservice to users.

I also agree with the suggestions for improving BD alerts. The names of potential risks/threats should NEVER be truncated and when clicking the "View Application" button, the file in question should DEFINITELY BE HIGHLIGHTED.

In addition to these improvements, I would also suggest that BD provide info on the IP address being accessed by the file noted in the alert. There are numerous services on the Internet where users can lookup domain names and IP addresses to see who owns them. In many instances, I've looked up an IP address when I get an alert and, in one example, saw that it was owned by Microsoft - which put my mind at ease and made me more comfortable in allowing it.

One other suggestion I'd like to make is adding "Allow Once" and "Deny Once" buttons to the alert dialog box. Norton 360 has these and it's extremely helpful in situations where you're testing something and don't want a particular app to access the web in that instance, but do want to allow it access in later on. I know I can go in and remove the rule in the notifications section later on, but this just adds more work for users. Being able to temporarily allow or deny access makes life MUCH easier.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent/provide feedback and I hope the folks at BitDefender give them serious consideration.

uncl3lizard

100% agree with the above, I can't read the name of the application how am I supposed to make a decision about whether it should be allowed?? The copy and paste suggestion is good, or just have the "view application" link at least highlight the item in question (or better yet, a behavior like the bullseye in Sysinternals which highlights the window of the item in question if there is one)

Alexandru_BD

Hi @uncl3lizard and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. The above suggestion is still under review.

Best regards

jschlie

I'm trialing the software and this is my first entry here. I came here looking to find an answer to this same issue with the partial names on firewall notifications. It's obviously been an issue for awhile and doesn't appear that this is being actively worked on. If you're dealing with some sort of constraint in the size of the dialogue could you at least select the program file in the explorer window so we don't have to search for the tail end of the name?

Thanks!

BobTGR

So is there a solution to this fundamental problem?

The firewall is effectively useless - should I allow everything or nothing?

How can i spot a real threat??

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

This request has been approved for implementation and the developers have plans to improve the way firewall alerts are shown. The changes will be deployed with a future update, however, we do not have an exact date.

Regards

IFMTYEK

You might consider adding a "Sandbox" button as well, which would, well, sandbox any suspect applications, temporarily, with limited duration and/or a panic back-out button as well.

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

Changes are on their way here. Instead of the path in the pop-up, the notification will only display the name of the application. When hovering, the entire path will be visible and view application will take you directly to the folder with the application, within the selected file. However, in the event the file is set as hidden, then we will not be able to select the file.

Thank you very much for your valuable input.

Regards