Outbound Firewall Software?

[thecommissar]

I've been advised that I might want to consider an outbound firewall.

1. I have BD TS2016 (which replaces Win Defender inbound firewall) and I have WebRoot SecureAnywhere AV. Previously I thought the latter had an outbound firewall component as per its website, but apparently WR SA does NOT run an outbound firewall on Win 8.1 or Win 10, which they do NOT make very obvious (the program for example says firewall is active... but as per their own comments the firewall does not work on the most recent versions of Windows.

I'm not very worried about information theft so I'm listing this as a low priority issue, but if I DID want an outbound firewall (assuming nothing complicated like a hardware setup) what would the options be?

2. I was thinking that Comodo firewall (which is free) probably has an outbound firewall component (though I wasn't 100% sure about this), and if it does... I imagine I would need to turn OFF BitDefender's Firewall. I've been thinking this might be the best solution given Comodo Firewall has a pretty active userbase and seems well respected.

3. Still, I don't know if I really want to add more software just to get an outbound firewall.

Thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 178]

I think you misunderstood inbound/outbound protection with inbound/outbound alerts.

All software firewalls (even the one in Windows) offer inbound/outbound protection; the only difference between them is that some of them notify the user when a application try to connect to internet (outbound alert) while other don't depending on their mechanics.

Now some people use Windows Firewall but need more control so they install what is called a WF GUI; just a program that generating alerts for WF without changing how it works.

You have BD firewall already, which is enough; by adding other FW you will create conflicts even if you turn it off; BD firewall's drivers are still there.

 

[thecommissar]

Ah ok I got you; I did misunderstand - Still I was a bit confused, if they block a program from connecting out, how can they NOT notify the user? Wouldn't this in principle block a user's program/process/etc from connecting to the internet? How would they know the firewall was blocking it?

I'm assuming BD Firewall can't be configured to throw alerts? Also what is the point of an alert... if the exe already connected out in terms of being able to stop it assuming it was malware? Wouldn't it be 'too late'?

 

[Deleted member 178]

if they block a program from connecting out, how can they NOT notify the user?

because some users don't want being disturbed while they work.

Wouldn't this in principle block a user's program/process/etc from connecting to the internet? How would they know the firewall was blocking it?

Firewall without alert (like WF or Webroot) have a whitelist and will alert only if an unknown/suspicious process ask for a connection.
Average users doesn't have to know, even they if they know , what they can do unless they got the required skill and knowledge to differentiate between a malware and a legit process.

I'm assuming BD Firewall can't be configured to throw alerts? Also what is the point of an alert... if the exe already connected out in terms of being able to stop it assuming it was malware? Wouldn't it be 'too late'?

BD should alert you. if not just check the settings, im not fond of BD so my knowledge in it is limited.
As exemple, keyloggers need to connect to their server , if you block its connections your datas can't be transmitted.