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[NikJosuf]

First of all, kudos for this nice piece of simple yet effective piece of software.
I recently stumbled upon it as I asked several questions on the Microsoft support forums,
where they pointed me this way.

I use the free edition, which provides me just the basic functionality that I want and need.

I have 2 questions though:

- How do I decide between choosing Allow All and Allow Outgoing?
In other words, how do I know whether a program just needs outgoing or needs to be allowed 'all the way'?

Recently a (new?) program name showed up in the main window, called def
It does not seem to have any properties and I cannot choose a zone for it.
Also, when I delete the rule it just shows up again when opening and re-opening the main window.

- What is this, and does it come with the FirewallControl software or not?
I attached a screen to clarify.

Hope anyone can help.
Thanks in advance.


/NikJosuf

[NikJosuf]

No one?

[VistaFirewallControl]

>How do I decide between choosing Allow All and Allow Outgoing?

The question can be reformulated as “do I trust the application”, “do I understand the activity is reasonable, actually required and safe”.
The main principle is not to enable unknown/ unexplainable. And then if something does not work as expected trying to understand and enable it a bit reasonably…


>Recently a (new?) program name showed up in the main window, called def

Is there a way to reproduce the situation?
Version? Platform? and other details please.
Looks like W7FC detected an application activity but trying to detect the application name failed.
Is there the application path shown in the EditApplication dialog

[NikJosuf]

Thanks for the reply.

The question doesn`t need o be reformulated.
Ik want to know how to decide between 'outgoing only' or 'allow all'
What kind of programs only need outgoing traffic?

I use version 4.0.144.38 of the Firewallcontrol software on a Windows 7 machine.
The program called def is as shown in the attached screen shot.
I wouldn`t know what to tell more about it since has no properties.

[VistaFirewallControl]

Typically end-user programs have outgoing traffic only. The incoming traffic is used by services/servers mostly.
We would recommend settings OutgoingOnly and if something does not work as expected expand the permission to EnableAll.
However there will be no many typical end-user applications require EnableAll.
From security point the difference is not significant if the application is trusted.

Regarding”def”
Double clicking the def shows the application properties. Please verify.
We could not exclude a W7FC related problem in advance, however, the situation looks as follows. When W7FC detects an unlisted application the internal application path is known for sure. Then W7FC tries to determine so called dospath (habitual path as disk:\path\exename) and the application name. If W7FC fails with determination, most probably the application prevents the determination anyhow. We have no known cases of such behavior, but if there is only one category of application with the behavior – malware. Undoubtedly we have no enough information to make a verdict, however we would recommend you to use an antivirus to verify your PC.