It reminds me more of the old Windows firewall/IPS/IDS called Sygate. It was ahead of its time. I think Zonealarm came after since that is what I replaced it with after Symantec(?) bought Sygate and rolled the best functions of Sygate into their Professional firewall for a premium price. Sygate was free or you could buy a permanent license for a one-time fee. It was the best personal protection products available for pcs running Windows up to WinXP.
I had also tried a different firewall/privacy tool from a company in Canada I think called ZeroKnowledge. That was a great product that also allowed you fine-grained access to and control of all connections to/from your Windows pc. They had a product available for a short time but shut down suddenly. I think I read that they were bought out by another firewall company but can't remember which one. They may have been rolled into the Blackberry software line.
Both of these were available in the 90's lead-up to the dot com bust if I remember right. Sygate became obsolete when support ended around the time WinXP faded. ZeroKnowledge disappeared much earlier. I may have old executables and installers somewhere on antique backups.
I used Portmaster too until they started locking existing features behind paid subscription. And generally just pushing towards microtransactions in general. I vastly prefer buy once or buy per major version.
It would be better if it suggested the consequences of stopping programs from phoning home, like will this program say the license check failed after 2 weeks, or will it keep working.
Which I use for years, and just because of lack of a better alternative (minimal, OSS) I actually quite "hate" it.:
It has no rules, like "Allow a file with THIS name on THAT path", the biggest complain of every simplewall user is its biggest flaw and annoyance: It asks you a million times to allow or deny the "same" app, after its checksum changed. So all the Windows apps that auto update always pop up again and again.
A coding agent autonomously compiling and testing an exe with network access is impossible. I have to turn off simplewall, because it would constantly block the executable after recompilation.
I'm a simplewall user and what you describing is not my biggest flaw or annoyance - I simply don't upgrade windows (why would calculator need updates??) and after clicking few denies, its get very quiet. Been this way for 2 years now on Win 11.
So now we use AI for coding we can't sell any apps anymore?
Like this guy pushed a button and everything just happened?
What does it matter if it's mostly coded by an LLM. If someone skilled guided an LLM to build an app that does something meaningful and useful why shouldn't they be able to sell it or accept donations?
I beg you. At the very least, please, write your own headers. I don't even need you to write the whole copy on the page, but please, don't make us read that claudease slop. This makes the app you advertise look like the lowest of efforts, no matter what it is.
"Know which apps are calling home."
"Every connection, your call"
Isn't this just ZoneAlarm?
It reminds me more of the old Windows firewall/IPS/IDS called Sygate. It was ahead of its time. I think Zonealarm came after since that is what I replaced it with after Symantec(?) bought Sygate and rolled the best functions of Sygate into their Professional firewall for a premium price. Sygate was free or you could buy a permanent license for a one-time fee. It was the best personal protection products available for pcs running Windows up to WinXP.
I had also tried a different firewall/privacy tool from a company in Canada I think called ZeroKnowledge. That was a great product that also allowed you fine-grained access to and control of all connections to/from your Windows pc. They had a product available for a short time but shut down suddenly. I think I read that they were bought out by another firewall company but can't remember which one. They may have been rolled into the Blackberry software line.
Both of these were available in the 90's lead-up to the dot com bust if I remember right. Sygate became obsolete when support ended around the time WinXP faded. ZeroKnowledge disappeared much earlier. I may have old executables and installers somewhere on antique backups.
Is zonealarm still alive?
Portmaster has been filling this role for me for the last couple years.
Windows firewall control
I used Portmaster too until they started locking existing features behind paid subscription. And generally just pushing towards microtransactions in general. I vastly prefer buy once or buy per major version.
It's a tvery similar concept and presentation
or perhaps BlackICE
Wow haven't read that name since around 2000, gave me a weird feeling in my brain.
Here's another one: F.O.S.I.
Good, older alternative (seems to be not this user friendly) is Malwarebytes Window Firewall Control.
Just tried this and it has a learning mode which is what I was looking for.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Portmaster is my go-to
Edit: and glasswire although portmaster is my favorite
Cool.
It would be better if it suggested the consequences of stopping programs from phoning home, like will this program say the license check failed after 2 weeks, or will it keep working.
Another alternative is Simplewall: https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall
Which I use for years, and just because of lack of a better alternative (minimal, OSS) I actually quite "hate" it.:
It has no rules, like "Allow a file with THIS name on THAT path", the biggest complain of every simplewall user is its biggest flaw and annoyance: It asks you a million times to allow or deny the "same" app, after its checksum changed. So all the Windows apps that auto update always pop up again and again.
A coding agent autonomously compiling and testing an exe with network access is impossible. I have to turn off simplewall, because it would constantly block the executable after recompilation.
I'm a simplewall user and what you describing is not my biggest flaw or annoyance - I simply don't upgrade windows (why would calculator need updates??) and after clicking few denies, its get very quiet. Been this way for 2 years now on Win 11.
I also easily recommend this one. And OpenSnitch on linux seems to be doing the same job, though the interface can be less friendly.
Simplewall is quite terrible, IMO. They still haven't fixed the painfully slow fuzzy search functionality for firewall rules.
I'd rather not use a security tool which is 100% vibeslop with a 100% vibeslop website.
People are conjuring up all kinds of apps slapped together by LLMs and actually have the gal to ask money for them?!
It’s free tho
They removed the "Pricing" menu item from the website.
So now we use AI for coding we can't sell any apps anymore?
Like this guy pushed a button and everything just happened?
What does it matter if it's mostly coded by an LLM. If someone skilled guided an LLM to build an app that does something meaningful and useful why shouldn't they be able to sell it or accept donations?
Might as well make some money while you can.
How is this better and more comprehensive than Fort Firewall? https://github.com/tnodir/fort
I prefer this one as well.
I've been working on my own version of this for a little over a year. Sigh.
May I see it?
I'm looking for somewhere to put it anonymously, don't want to doxx myself.
many options for this? unless you are ultra-concerned with anyone knowing who you are.
I'm not that special. Apologize for the LLM cruft, I had Fable spin through to try and clean it up. If it's broken, oh well.
https://codeberg.org/Avicebron/Sereno
I beg you. At the very least, please, write your own headers. I don't even need you to write the whole copy on the page, but please, don't make us read that claudease slop. This makes the app you advertise look like the lowest of efforts, no matter what it is.
"Know which apps are calling home." "Every connection, your call"
Or better yet, make the aite itself open-source so people can contribute better writing.
I learnt recently these are called "staccato sentences" https://x.com/michael_chomsky/status/2107235505620521274. Update your agents.md
But then how would you know that the app is the lowest of efforts if the copy is better written?
slop