Adding firewall rules is a painfully slowww and cumbersome user experience and must be redesigned

jrkoop

As a Bitdefender power user I want to be able to quickly add multiple firewall rules so that the application doesn’t slow me down and subject me to a poorly designed user experience that apparently no experienced UX designer has ever looked at. What should take at most 30 seconds, on average takes 5, 10 or more minutes. It’’s incredibly poorly designed, more like a quickly thrown together afterthought just to get the app out the door than a well-thought out, user-friendly feature that’s easy and intuitive to use by an average customer.

Adding rules for multiple programs at once is painfully slowww. You have to click on the folder browser icon, navigate to the correct folder by traversing the entire file tree, then, once in the correct folder, select one file at a time (so bad) and then repeat that for every single file (the entire, cumbersome, slow process). The program won't even persist the folder you last visited. Each time you start back at the root. Furthermore, once in a folder (which takes numerous mouse clicks and a bunch of scrolling), you cannot control-click or otherwise select multiple files at once. This is such a badly done and non-standard implementation of how every other decent Windows app typically does this that you have to wonder which barely capable developer was given the task and whose code was obviously never reviewed.

A good solution could be a context menu option, but even when using the built-in navigator, the app must, at the very least, persist the last used folder and allow the selection of multiple files at one time using the well-established, ubiquitously used method of control-clicking or using checkboxes. This part of an otherwise excellent security suite is HUGELY in need of updating (a complete redesign, actually).

Alexandru_BD

Hello @jrkoop and thanks for joining us here.

If you ask me, I think the firewall is purposefully designed like this, so that rules for many bulk/rapid applications cannot be easily added. This way, one cannot bypass a detection/blocking problem when there might actually be something malicious there. The most important measure of protection is prevention, and any vulnerability can be exploited, so perhaps this is reflected in the way the firewall was conceived.

As far as I'm aware, there are plans to bring some improvements to the firewall interface, but I could not give a deadline for this. The developers are aware that the current layout and commands need some tweaking and optimization, however this is a process that will require extensive testing to find the perfect balance between user friendliness and security. The firewall is your gate keeper after all, as such its settings are much more granular than those of other modules and much more specific, in my opinion.

Thank you once again for sharing your thoughts here.

Regards,

Alex

capuchinapr

Bitdefender's delayed development and confusing firewall rule setup tool, which takes a long time to use and is not user-friendly, give the program a bad reputation. Even seasoned users find this feature challenging to use.

Prashant Savaj

I also agree with the sentiment expressed above. Many bulk/rapid applications cannot be easily added in the firewall, which is a very tedious job. Bitdefender's poor impression in the market, coupled with its lack of development in advanced features, is resulting in the loss of market shares and impacting its business negatively.

Alexandru_BD

Hi,

As per my explanations above, the firewall is purposefully designed like this, so that rules for many bulk/rapid applications cannot be easily added. This way, one cannot bypass a detection/blocking problem when there might actually be something malicious there. This is just something to consider before labeling it as a poor design.

I have to respectfully disagree on the market impression statement. Bitdefender provides the best overall protection in the world. Proof to that are countless awards received from independent testing organizations and specialized IT websites, and you can check some of them yourself here and here. Bitdefender has also received more “Product of the Year Awards” than any other security vendor in independent tests in the last decade (2009-2019). The company's detection technologies are not only used by millions of consumer and enterprise users, it’s also being licensed to about 30 percent of its competitors in the anti-virus space.

I think it's unfair to dislike something based on a singular feature that's not available there for valid security concerns. We should try to see the bigger picture instead.

Regards,

Alex