Product Suggestions

[siramic]

I too like to know when something is inbound and outbound, even if it's like the simple green/red status bars in the Notification Area, like PCTools Firewall Plus, and didn't even Zone Alarm have that in the tray also? Very nice to be able to flag that down when your system is idle, and you have a spike in the Firewall, just to see what's going on.

[TomiRed Super Spam Squasher]

I wouldn't go as far as showing indicators in the system tray. Modern systems in this age of broadband are communicating with the internet almost continually, and there wouldn't be any added benefit in showing red and green arrows in the tray, as they would show all the time.

This should be an advanced option exposed on the back of the User Interface, something like Norton Tasks. Items that should be listed are the image names (if possible, with a sreentip showing the full path), process PID, ports opened by that process, the remote adress and port, and the amount of incoming and outgoing traffic. This could be coupled with Application Ratings, to show which of these processes are common, signed and safe.

[notsripted785]

Very nice idea indeed!

And it should look alot like TomiRed discreption, imho.

[xxJackxx Spyware Scolder]

One of my biggest complaints about NIS is the lack of firewall options. Anything to improve the firewall gets my vote.

[Dieselman326]

There are tons of firewall options. You just need to turn off Automatic Program Control and turn on Advanced Event Monitoring. This is all done under the Smart Firewall tab. The options are off by default so users will not be bombed with tons of pop ups.

[brb]

Agreed, this is something I miss from my previous security solution.

I'd like to see which applications are connected or sending/receiving traffic.

It would help to diagnose any network related issues or possible infections as well since you can monitor more closely which applications are actually accessing the internet.

[MB1304]

Additionally, it would be great if the updated firewall could show what ports are open, and what programs are using / need to use what ports. This display should be able to be shown either by:

1). Port # -- programs using the Port # (e.g., Port 587 - Outlook 2010)

2). Program --- list of all Port #s a program uses (e.g., Outlook 2010 - Ports 25, 465, 587, 995

The next phase would be for the firewall to be able to dynamically open / close Ports based upon what programs are running and which ports are required. So the default would be that Ports 25, 465, 587, 995 would be closed until I launch Outlook 2010. Once I launch Outlook, Ports 25, 465, 587, 995 would be open. When I then close Outlook, the Ports would be blocked.

Dynamically opening / closing Ports would significantly reduce a computers Internet attack surface area.

[gabranth]

you can see what apps are using the internet in the task manager/resource monitor and malware would most probably try and hide/use another legit app to accesses the internet

and i wouldn't want nortan to open incoming ports to microsoft app's under and circumstance

[H_H_86]

Great idea.