Troubleshoot Internet Connection Partially Closed After Shutting Down Private Firewall

AtlBo

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Briefly explain your current issue(s)
None. Restarting Frivate Firewall fixed the problem.
Steps taken to resolve, but have been unsuccessful
Restart Private Firewall
I was thinking of installing Comodo Firewall this AM, and I started the installation. I turned off PF to avoid the pop ups and then went on the internet to find setup recommendations for CF. That's when I noticed that I could not connect to some sites in a multi-tab Firefox session. The connection attempt would time out. Some sites that would not connect were Outlook.com and YouTube. I could access Major Geeks and MalwareTips and other bulletin board sites. I checked, and Windows Firewall was on, so is this a Windows Firewall issue?
 
L

LabZero

I don't know if I understand correctly.
You have turned off PF and have installed Comodo Firewall, so two firewall installed at the same time ?
In this case of course you have to uninstall either one to avoid ovelapping.
PF anyway is known cause this problem sometimes; I have tested it a while ago and noticing a bad leaktest, I uninstalled it.
After uninstalling in "network card" was still present "privacyware filter miniport", so the system has allowed me to turn off it but not to eliminate. It's a sign of invasiveness persistent of PF.
 
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AtlBo

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Klipsh...

Thanks for the reply. No I stopped the Comodo installation. I turned off PL when I had started it, but I left the installation on the screen at the first installation window and went to look for information on settings. That's when I noticed that Firefox couldn't connect to some sites. I did notice that the Windows firewall had become the default firewall, so PF was off. Also, however, the PF service was still running. I shut it down and the behavior persisted in Firefox, even with no visible traces of PL running. That's when I decided to close the waiting Comodo installation and see if I could find out what was going on.

I did not try a reboot with PF disabled. Are you saying that somehow PF may affect the performance of Windows firewall when PF is turned off? I haven't noticed that before, and I was kind of curious if maybe PF's control of the system was so engrained that the system just took longer than the time I allowed to completely digest the change (over to Windows firewall). I have shut down PF many times without this happening.

Do you mind sharing which leak test you tried? It does pass the Gibson test for me. I sought one time to verify the Matousec tests and downloaded the test payloads. I got exactly the same results, but I admit it was disappointing to me. This was quite some time ago and only now was I getting around to working with Comodo firewall. I tried it a few months ago and have tried it many times over the years, just kind of monitoring progress, but it's always seemed jumbled to me.

As it is, I run PF in the mode to show pop ups for everything it monitors, and I basically/mostly always approve them or reject them the one time. In this way, there aren't hoards of processes and connections with rules for me to try to keep up with, but it is a cumbersome existence. I don't mind, I mean I get pop ups when some things open or run, but this method avoids the potential problem of blanket approval of a behavior for an entire program, especially Windows services. I pay special attention to clipboard monitoring and potential keylogging.

I haven't ever determined for certain if PF IDs programs using a Windows service like svchost to connect to the net as the program or as svchost. This nags me to no end, but I did read at one point that the Gibson test is supposed to validate that PF does ID connections as the program and not the host service being used to connect. That was supposedly the crux of the problem with many firewalls according to Gibson as I read on his site.

Whenever I have removed Private Firewall in the past, I have always used Comodo Programs Manager. I install CPM right after updates with a new installation of Windows. It seems to get all of PF every time I have removed it before.

I may sound like I know alot idk, but mostly I guess alot of this has been bottled up with me not having time to dive into Comodo. Where would I look in Windows for "network card"?

BTW, do you find Comodo Firewall's interface and settings clumsy and fragmented? I can't seem to get to the bottom of Comodo's use of language with their settings. It took me awhile to get used to PF, but I feel like I have it more or less down now. There are still some things that I'm not sure about, but I have the manual, which helps and has helped somewhat...
 
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H

hjlbx

Cannot have both Private Firewall and Comodo Firewall installed at the same time. Exiting or "Turning Off" Private Firewall will not prevent or fix conflict.

Completely uninstall Private Firewall before installing Comodo Firewall.

You should also uninstall\delete any remnants of Private Firewall left in registry and Program\App Data for best results - but that sort of tinkering requires knowledge\experience - lest you smash your system.

One careless deletion in registry and something goes "Boink!"

Bad Ju-Ju...
 
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hjlbx

Try BC Uninstaller and see if you can manually uninstall PF or CF.

@Vasudev is pointing out that you might have partial install of Comodo Firewall => cause of problems with network connectivity.

Need to uninstall all firewalls
Need to delete all firewall file remnants in ProgramData\App Data
Need to remove registry remnants

Sometimes uninstaller, such as BC Uninstaller\Total Uninstall\Revo, can fix the problem. Most times they cannot... so it requires manual nit-picking by user to fix - or, if that doesn't work - clean install OS.

Sometimes that is just how things turn out...
 
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Soulbound

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options: uninstall both PF and Comodo (if uninstaller available) in safe mode.

option 2: uninstall PF in safe mode
Restart
Install comodo on top
Restart
uninstall comodo in safe mode

Once all uninstall, just reinstall PF and you should be fine.
 
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Vasudev

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I plan ahead or strictly speaking, first I do a trial & hit method for all security suites and check whether its uninstall procedures is good or not? Also I perform some benchmarks to see if there's a performance hit or a lockup. At the moment, I'm using MSE/WD & MBAM free version. Most of the time I spend time with Xubuntu so I rarely use windows. I primarily use windows for making slipstreamed versions of w7,w8.1 and w10 and nothing more. As of now, AppRemover is integrated into OPSWAT Gears.
 
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AtlBo

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Turns out the problem was with Glasswire. It calls itself a firewall, but it's really just a connection info program for the most part unless the upgraded version is purchased. 360 Total Security offers it as a network monitor. When I turned off Private Firewall, Glasswire blocked the internet connection. I suspect that the configuration that I had for it in PF kept it from being able to do this, since PF is about 80% about program behaviors.

Thanks to everyone for the information. By the way, I have run Comodo Firewall with PF on the PC. It worked fine. I disabled the PF service and then removed it from startups. I haven't noticed any intrusiveness of PF. Seems to be the opposite to me based on the last two years I have used the program. As far as I can tell PF is as simple a firewall as there can be. CF on the other hand?...

BTW, I use Comodo Programs Manager to get rid of traces. It records installations, and it does as good a job as I care to do. Haven't had any problems with traces of programs, and I have used it to remove Avast and all its system altering additions to a PC. It worked perfectly to the point that I didn't feel like I needed to use the avast removal tool or any other uninstallers or cleaners.
 
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Vasudev

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Turns out the problem was with Glasswire. It calls itself a firewall, but it's really just a connection info program for the most part unless the upgraded version is purchased. 360 Total Security offers it as a network monitor. When I turned off Private Firewall, Glasswire blocked the internet connection. I suspect that the configuration that I had for it in PF kept it from being able to do this, since PF is about 80% about program behaviors.

Thanks to everyone for the information. By the way, I have run Comodo Firewall with PF on the PC. It worked fine. I disabled the PF service and then removed it from startups. I haven't noticed any intrusiveness of PF. Seems to be the opposite to me based on the last two years I have used the program. As far as I can tell PF is as simple a firewall as there can be. CF on the other hand?...

BTW, I use Comodo Programs Manager to get rid of traces. It records installations, and it does as good a job as I care to do. Haven't had any problems with traces of programs, and I have used it to remove Avast and all its system altering additions to a PC. It worked perfectly to the point that I didn't feel like I needed to use the avast removal tool or any other uninstallers or cleaners.
I'm surprised you didn't notice any slowdowns whilst running multiple FWs. when @hjlbx says remove all remnants that means remove all traces to be on safe side.
 
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AtlBo

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Vasudev...

Well, I wasn't actually running them both, since PF was off and its service disabled. I am trying to remember all the specifics because it was 5 or 6 months ago. I do recall at first still getting some PF pop ups to go along with the Comodo pop ups. Seems like disabling the service may have stopped the issues, but I can't remember. It was only for a few days. I became frustrated that Comodo was deleting some scripts. Maybe I missed some Comodo alerts, but I felt like I needed to back off for at least a while and then maybe go back to Comodo later.

As far as slowdowns go, system wise the PC was running really well. I mean I was surprised how well the PC ran with Comodo running as the firewall. All the features worked fine, but I never got around to sandboxing. Wish I had had the time.

I understand that I shouldn't run two firewalls. I can see too that it's not a good idea to have two installed. Next time I try Comodo whenever that is, I will give it a more fair look and uninstall PF. It's super easy to export the settings so I would just be being lazy not to uninstall it. Anyway, I wonder if the whole time I had Comodo installed it was running behind the PF filters. Maybe the system would even run better than I remember if I remove PF...
 
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