New Update MajorPrivacy

silversurfer

Super Moderator
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Staff Member
Malware Hunter
Forum Veteran
Aug 17, 2014
12,729
123,837
8,399

Major Privacy is an advanced privacy tool for Windows. It is a continuation of the PrivateWin10 project. It brings a multitude of new functionality made possible through the use of a custom kernel isolation driver. Conceptually, Major Privacy is a HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System). The driver can monitor and filter file/registry access as well as protect processes from being manipulated by other processes. It leverages the Windows built-in mechanisms to restrict network traffic, and brings a convenient collection of privacy-enhancing tweaks. It implements its own rule-based software restriction mechanism, i.e. the ability to prevent unauthorized or undesired applications from running. Using the process protection feature of the KernelIsolator driver, Major Privacy can protect unprivileged user processes from being compromised and their secrets exfiltrated, even from threads running with system or administrative privileges. Its ability to protect processes, in combination with its ability to restrict access to files and folders, helps to protect personal data. Furthermore, Major Privacy is capable of creating protected volumes located in encrypted container files, such that access to confidential data is only possible when the user provides the correct password and the tool is actively filtering filesystem accesses. The privacy agent logs file, registry, and network access, and provides comprehensive logs and visualizations of process activity on the host system. This enables the user to check if their applications are only doing what they want them to do. Major Privacy is designed to not only provide a line of defense against regular malware, but also to defend the user from legitimate - but overreaching - software, so that the software can be safely used and the companies behind it won't be able to access anything the user did not choose to make available.You can see its unfinished documents here.


Licensing​

This tool is open source; however, the license is a bit more restrictive than typical open source licenses.MajorPrivacy is free like in freedom, but not free like in free beer. This means that that if you are using it, you are expected to get a license from xanasoft.com. The UI will remind you of this from time to time.If you want to publicly distribute self-compiled binaries, please review the LICENSE file for details.


Features​

  • Process Protection - Protect user processes in secure enclaves from other processes including elevated and system processes.
  • Software Restriction - Block undesired processes from starting and undesired DLL's from loading.
  • File/Folder Protection - Protect selected files and folders from being accessed by unauthorized processes.
  • Registry Protection - like File/Folder Protection just for registry keys. (not enabled in beta build)
  • Network Firewall - Advanced network firewall to manage outbound and inbound communication.
  • DNS Inspection - Monitor DNS cache and trace events to determine which domains are being accessed by running processes.
  • DNS Fitlering - Filter all DNS requests with a set of pre-defined block lists (pi home compatible) and own custom rules.
  • Proxy Injection - Force arbitrary processes to use pre-defined network proxies. (not yet implemented)
  • Secure Drives - Create encrypted volumes stored in disk images fully guarded by File/Folder Protection to prevent unauthorized access to confidential data.(even from kernelmode,but not yet implemented)
  • Tweak Engine - Hardens Windows configuration by disabling undesired telemetry and cloud features.
  • Integrity level control - set the integrity level of processes in a secure enclave to "Protected" to isolate user objects, including their windows, from other processes.





Major Privacy v0.97.2 BETA
This release of MajorPrivacy introduces several powerful new features and important improvements. A DNS filter server has been added, enabling more granular control over DNS traffic. Users can now define Windows Firewall rule templates with wildcard-enabled paths, significantly streamlining rule creation. The ingress view includes a new operation filter, and program items in the UI now display memory usage for log and trace data, with a total memory usage indicator for services. We've also introduced trace presets per process and added an option to enable debugging of processes running in enclaves. For easier navigation, a new "expand/collapse all" button has been added to the program tree.

Path rule handling has been reworked with a more flexible mechanism supporting DOS-style patterns, with plans for a future rule import system. The firewall popup now ignores incoming connection attempts to avoid unnecessary prompts. Internally, the project structure, framework, and variant implementation have been refactored and cleaned up, resulting in a more stable and maintainable codebase. Log and trace data are now managed using dedicated memory pools per program, improving performance and reliability.

This version also resolves a deadlock issue during program list cleanup and a crash that could occur when stopping the service while the UI remained open.
 

Major Privacy v0.98.0 BETA​

This update marks a major step forward in functionality, security, and usability for MajorPrivacy. With version 0.98.0, we're introducing an installer to simplify setup and deployment. Core security enhancements include token integrity level elevation for enclave processes, significantly improving User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI), and new driver unload protection to guard against tampering. Secure desktop prompting has been implemented, requiring explicit user approval before Core components can be shut down, reinforcing trusted control over critical operations.

The AccessTree now includes a convenient "Copy Path" feature, and the tweak management interface has been upgraded with the ability to approve or restore tweaks directly within the view. A range of new privacy and security tweaks are now available, including resource access restrictions, execution control, and finely tuned firewall rule adjustments.

In terms of usability improvements, the tweaks view has been refined, and tweak status is now persistently saved to disk, ensuring settings survive reboots or restarts. We’ve also resolved a critical stability issue that could cause a BSOD when the agent crashed during process startup inside an enclave.

This release lays important groundwork for the upcoming 1.0 milestone by tightening system integrity and enhancing user control without compromising performance or clarity.

07.05.2025: Re-uploaded installer with fixed uninstall routine.
 

Major Privacy v0.98.1 BETA​

The 0.98.1 release of MajorPrivacy introduces significant enhancements and a number of critical fixes aimed at improving usability, localization, and system integration. A major new feature is the introduction of full translation support, allowing the application interface and tweaks to be localized into multiple languages. Initial translations include AI-assisted German and Polish versions, a community-contributed Turkish translation, and Simplified Chinese. Users interested in contributing translations or adding new languages are encouraged to participate via the forum.

This version also improves compatibility and deployment by bundling the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable with the installer, which is required for the ImDisk user interface.

Several important bugs have been resolved. The installer now correctly removes the driver during uninstallation. Tweak definitions have been cleaned up for better consistency. A number of networking issues were addressed, including failures related to network shares and incorrect handling of mapped drive letters. It is now required to use full UNC paths for defining rules involving shared resources. Additionally, configuration persistence issues on system shutdown have been fixed, as well as problems affecting protected folder visibility and rule precedence involving enclave conditions.

Finally, the underlying driver code has been refactored, laying the groundwork for better maintainability and future enhancements.
 
Last edited:

Major Privacy v0.98.1 BETA​


Would it act like interactive firewall, similar to WFC?

MajorPrivacy_2.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Major Privacy v0.98.2 BETA​

MajorPrivacy version 0.98.2 introduces several powerful new features and critical stability improvements. This release adds a mechanism for detecting and restoring changes to Windows Firewall rules, helping users maintain consistent privacy configurations even when rules are modified externally. One of the major highlights is the introduction of a JavaScript engine that enables users to define advanced scripted rules, laying the groundwork for highly customizable privacy logic—though much of the scripting API is still under development and will be expanded in upcoming releases.

A new summary page has been added, offering users a centralized view of their system’s privacy status. This page includes information about detected privacy issues, recent relevant events, and a comprehensive activity log. The notification system has also been refined for better usability and visual clarity.

Under the hood, the project has been updated to the latest development toolchain, now using Visual Studio 2022 and Qt 6. Several important bugs have been resolved, including a blue screen issue related to the driver, problems with signature database management, and missing descriptions for tweaks in the user interface. Additionally, issues with loading volume rules have been addressed to improve overall reliability.
 
Major Privacy v0.98.3 BETA
This release of MajorPrivacy introduces several important improvements, bug fixes, and optimizations. The resource access rules engine has been enhanced to include the user as an additional parameter, enabling finer-grained access control. CPU usage has been reduced in both the user interface and background service, improving overall performance. The ImBox feature has been updated to avoid modifying container file timestamps when accessing secure encrypted volumes. Firewall rule handling has been improved for Store Apps on Windows 23H2 and later versions, increasing compatibility and reliability.

A critical issue has been resolved in ImBox.exe that affects the mounting of older encrypted volumes; users should use a previous build to recover data and then recreate the volumes using this or a later version. Additionally, several interface and functionality bugs have been addressed: translations now load correctly, the Data Editor’s tree view now functions properly across multiple .dat files, and the Execution Monitor displays entries as expected when a time filter is applied. The “Add to Group” menu now correctly lists all available groups, and folder creation is no longer incorrectly permitted under Directory Listing and Read-only actions.
 
Major Privacy v0.98.4 BETA
MajorPrivacy’s latest release focuses squarely on reliability, recoverability and responsiveness while adding a number of usability improvements and important security refinements. The Kernel Isolator driver now includes robust failsafe logic so that a configuration error can no longer easily leave a system unusable: the driver detects when Windows was started in Safe Mode and will refrain from enforcing rules so the system can be recovered, it counts unsuccessful boot attempts and will automatically load the last known good rule set after three failed boots, and after five failed boots it will refuse to load any rule set at all. These measures are intended to make misconfigurations much easier to recover from without manual driver intervention.

On the user interface side we added several features to make inspection and interaction faster and less error prone. Most views now include a Hold & Refresh button, there is an option to flatten the program view, and a new program-item-missing event helps detect and respond to removed or moved binaries. The traffic view now provides a menu action to block domains in the DNS filter or to block programs directly in the firewall. You can choose to hide default Windows firewall rules and to hide default Windows libraries in the module load view, and we restored missing first-start wizard pages while adding more UI configuration options. An online updater has been added to simplify future updates, and there is a new option to prevent the system from entering hibernation when protected secure volumes are mounted.

Under the hood the GUI is now multithreaded, which significantly improves responsiveness and reduces UI stalls, and we improved the image-checking mechanism and the status page. The user-controlled Code Integrity verification mechanism has been redesigned: user-trusted hashes and certificates are now stored in the registry alongside the protected configuration instead of in C:\ProgramData\Xanasoft\MajorPrivacy\sig_db files. Important caution: the new code does not automatically import old signatures, so you will need to re-authorize your files after upgrading. We also improved log cleanup handling and UI performance around execution records.

This release fixes a number of stability and correctness issues: the BSOD related to remote file systems has been resolved; the translation list not being populated is fixed; accepting firewall rule changes from the summary page now works reliably; the hardlinked program running outside the enclave issue (#49) is addressed; an open handle resource leak was closed; a bug in the thread pool was fixed; many minor UI glitches were corrected; repeated Exec notifications caused by UPX-compressed files (#76) no longer occur; image signature verification and host name update issues were repaired; cases where image protection was incorrectly applied to non-protected processes were fixed; and the notification window bug was resolved.

Please note the signature storage change when you upgrade: because trusted signatures and certificates are now kept in the registry, you must re-authorize any files you previously trusted from the old sig_db files.
 
Major Privacy v0.98.5 BETA
This release focuses on extending automation and scripting across rules and secure volumes, improving Windows 7 compatibility, and strengthening safety around secure-volume protection. The update introduces a suite of scripting features that bring program rules and secure enclaves under automated control, while also adding editing and diagnostics tools for scripts so administrators can write, highlight and inspect script activity without leaving the application. Notifications have been added to automated firewall events and a mechanism to automatically approve or reject rule changes, streamlining routine policy operations while keeping administrators informed.

Volume handling has received significant enhancements. A new volume configuration window is available whenever a secure volume is mounted, and administrators can now script actions on mount and dismount events. Secure enclaves can be stored directly on a volume; these volume-stored enclaves live in an mpsys file at the root of the volume and are editable only while that volume is mounted. Important to note: when an enclave is stored on a volume, any rules that reference that enclave are also persisted into that volume’s mpsys file, ensuring rules and enclave data remain colocated and portable with the volume.

Under the hood and in the UI, several changes improve usability and compatibility. Configuration options have been reorganized: the maintenance menu has been refined and config-related items moved into the options menu for clearer separation of duties. The product now ships on Qt 6.8.3 with Windows 7 compatibility patches, and the driver has been adapted to run on Windows 7. When MajorPrivacy creates its program data folder at C:\ProgramData\Xanasoft\MajorPrivacy, that folder is now readable by non-administrators to avoid unnecessary access problems. Wildcard rules that start without a drive letter, mount point or device path are no longer permitted; this restriction is deliberate and required to provide a hardened secure-volume protection model. The release also enables mounting secure volumes to a folder path and simplifies the HashDB view for easier inspection.

Stability fixes round out this release. Several crashes were addressed, including crashes when opening the hash database and when opening the process security ingress monitor (issues #87 and #88), and a Win7 crash has been resolved (issue #67). Log cleanup behaviour has been corrected and access notification messages now reliably include file information (issue #90). Overall, 0.98.5 delivers stronger automation, clearer volume management, improved backwards compatibility and a number of important reliability fixes.
 

Major Privacy v0.99.0 BETA​

This release brings a series of important fixes, improvements, and new features to enhance both stability and functionality across all supported platforms. Several critical bugs have been resolved, including an issue that caused the user interface to fail when restarting in maximum mode, and a problem that prevented hash database entries and enclave permissions from being set or applied correctly. Enclave scripts now update properly when changes are applied, and the process of adding new enclaves no longer produces errors. The installer has also been corrected to handle updates involving ksi.dll reliably, and a major memory leak in the graphical interface has been eliminated, improving long-term stability.

The visual presentation of terminated processes has been refined—these processes are now rendered in gray, similar to TaskExplorer, for better clarity. In addition, internal safeguards enforcing the integrity of user-mode components have been activated to strengthen security.

MajorPrivacy 0.99.0 also introduces several notable additions: full ARM64 support, a new driver option allowing users to run self-signed, custom-compiled MajorPrivacy user-mode components, and a comprehensive Diagnostics Information dialog accessible from the Help menu. Together, these updates mark a substantial step toward improved reliability, performance, and flexibility across architectures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: harlan4096
Major Privacy v0.99.1 BETA
MajorPrivacy 0.99.1 introduces several important enhancements focused on flexibility, compatibility, and safety. This release adds new options to configure the DLL injection mode, giving advanced users more control over how MajorPrivacy interacts with running processes. A dedicated Sandboxie-compatible high-level DLL injection mode has also been added to ensure seamless integration between both applications for users running them together.

To improve onboarding and prevent misconfiguration, a mandatory warning page has been introduced in the first-start wizard. Until this notice is acknowledged, the creation of driver rules remains disabled, ensuring users understand the potential impact of advanced system-level configurations before proceeding.

Additionally, this version brings two convenient new actions related to Windows Firewall management. Users can now automatically create a set of useful initial firewall rules optimized for MajorPrivacy’s allow-list mode of operation, as well as restore the default Windows Firewall rules when needed.

With version 0.99.1, MajorPrivacy continues to refine its balance between powerful control and safe defaults, making advanced system protection easier and more reliable for all users.
 
  • Like
Reactions: harlan4096

You may also like...