After using Glasswire for a bit a couple of things really stood out as needed features. These may have already been suggested although I did dig back through old suggestions without seeing them but I highly suspect that at least my first suggestion has been suggested before so please forgive me if I am rehashing older suggestions.
1 - When in ask to connect mode and a connect notification is displayed, the notification needs to be able to supply more information on the software making the request. Simply doing the same thing you have done in the firewall section of the software where hovering your mouse pointer over the application icon to display the popup with the path and publisher info would be good. I always like to check the path and publisher before granting access. Being able to do that from the notification is a must.
2 - The Firewall tab needs to have its own sub tab’s. Currently, any software that is set to deny access to the network is listed first in the firewall tab and then the software that can access the network follows below them. There should be a separate tab that lists denied apps and one that lists granted/active apps. I like my firewall setup to be pretty strict. Even if a piece of software is capable of accessing the network, if I don’t have a need or reason for that software to access my local net or the Internet, I will block it. This makes for a long list of denied software. Since they are all listed first, I have to scroll down to the active software to see host information etc for any piece of software. I would be better if all denied software were in their own tab and the other tab then displayed all software that had been granted access and would sort that list with active software listed first (Alphabetically) and then software that is not currently loaded below the active software.
3 - Since I have many apps that are denied access to the network (see suggestion 2), the feature you currently have built into the software to unblock all blocked apps at one time by turning off the firewall and then turning it back on is a bad way of doing that. I want my blocked apps to remain blocked unless I specifically unblock them by clicking on the fire icon or by selecting a button that is specifically for unblocking all of them at once. That button should also ask if you are sure when clicked. This feature should not be a default action if the firewall is turned off. I do understand that turning off the firewall will unblock them but I would like their setting as a blocked app to remain once the firewall is turned back on.
4 - Last thing and I am sure you have heard this as well. There should be an option the set the firewall security to be more or less granular depending on the users needs/experience level. I am fine with simply allowing or denying software access to the network but there are times when I would like to give a piece of software access to my local network but not allow it to access the Internet. We should also have the option to specify ports and hosts if desired (this goes back to the strict firewall setup I like to have). That feature should be optional but should be on an app by app basis.
We’re redesigning the Firewall tab also, and we will begin making faster changes to the Firewall tab over time after our next major update. Thanks for the ideas.
Our Firewall redesign should solve this for you.
Good idea. We’ll see if it’s possible to do something like this in the future.
We appreciate your detailed report and our team checks the message board daily.
I’m not sure if you are suggesting a setting that sets the default level of detail for the Firewall so elementary users see a simple view and experienced users always see more detail. If you are then I don’t think that anyone has suggested this which deserves a big . This would be a really useful setting even if it is only for all applications. Many users would only ever use the simplest view which could be much like the different views of Windows Firewall versus Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
There are lots of suggestions for more detail and greater control over, for example, hosts and IP addresses
I’d much prefer a different solution for the problem of too many apps to see them all in one screen.
All applications should appear in the same tab whether they are blocked or not. They can then be sorted and filtered in various ways. We would not be able to do this in separate tabs.
For example, I should be able to see all processes from the same publisher, such as all the software Apple iTunes installs that have network connections rather than having them separated into two different tabs based on their blocking.
I think you pretty much got what I was suggesting. Obviously the simple Allow or Deny should stay as it is for users that do not need anymore than this easy ability to block or allow app’s access. But more advanced users should have granular control. I sort of thought that there could be a choice in the settings where the user could chose between basic (or easy) and advanced. If basic is selected the users would be presented with notifications that are pretty much like we see now as long as they are running in the ask to connect mode. They would simply have to either allow or deny the access. If the user chooses advanced, the notification would be much more interactive. It would still present the option to allow or deny and those buttons would work the same as in the basic mode. There would also be a checkbox to select that would be labeled something like “Advanced Options” and as long as that checkbox is selected when the Allow button is selected it will popup a window with advanced settings for ports (local and remote), hosts, direction etc… One or all of those fields can be filled in on a per app basis. If the user wants to ensure that a specific app is outbound only and only utilizes port 8080 locally, they can select the direction and only fill in the local port field. Any other field that is not filled in will allow any port/host. It would also be here that the users can chose to allow network access for the local network but block remote network access. I am sure we have all seen advanced firewall settings so imagine a popup window with those settings. How the dev’s at Glasswire make this all come together and how it looks and feels is entirely their thing.I imagine they already have a vision for this since from what I understand version 2 will have advanced firewall features. My big concern is that it should fit the needs of hardcore computer nerds as well as satisfy your average home user that does not have any background or understanding of computer networking and are very happy with just the choice to allow or deny network access. I think that is best done by selecting that within the settings and having the basic setting set by default when the software first installs.
As far as the firewall tab goes…I just suggested sub tabs because the software is already using a tabbed interface but I don’t think that tabs are the absolute answer by any means. Whatever the developers think is the best way to do it but filtering or grouping is a must. The firewall in Comodo Internet Security has its flaws but one thing I do like about it is its ability to define and assign applications to groups in any manner that you chose. One of the better features they have with those groups is that the groups themselves can be assigned specific firewall settings. There can be a blocked group that will not allow network access for any application assigned to that group. You can setup a group for local networks access only or a group for web browsers that has browser port settings defined…you get the idea. I am not sure that can be accomplished with Glasswire though because I am not sure if there are limitations of the Windows Firewall that would make it a problem for Glasswire to setup and define groups like that and communicate individual firewall settings for individual apps to the Windows Firewall in a manner that would still work for the firewall. It would be nice but just the ability to filter by groups or tags or publisher or allowed/denied would be good. We simply need to have a way to see the information we want to see up front and let what we are not interested in seeing at that point in time be pushed off into the background.I think your sorting list above is exactly what is needed with the addition of some type of user created groups or tags that the view can be sorted or filtered by as well.
. This would be a really useful setting even if it is only for all applications. Many users would only ever use the simplest view which could be much like the different views of Windows Firewall versus Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.