Avast stops me from using Glasswire

Hello everyone, I recently installed and purchased an avast license.

Since then I can not block apps. I get an error message saying:
“Your Windows Operating System Firewall is disabled. Firewall disabled by Avast Premium Security.”

I contacted avast support but they werent able to help till that point after giving me some guide to config a few things in settings. Does anyone have gone through that and can help?

Thank you.

@Billakos8

Sorry for the issue.

I believe if you go into Avast’s settings you can disable their firewall and allow the Windows Firewall API to function (which we use for blocking). I would try rebooting if it doesn’t work immediately after changing the setting.

Well that would be the easy thing to do. I do like avast’s protection but want to keep glasswire blocking function. Is is impossible?

It is not recommended to use two firewalls simultaneously.

Many IT and Information Security professionals choose to keep our firewall switched to “Off” and use GlassWire solely as a powerful network security monitor. You could choose to do the same.

We designed GlassWire so it will not interfere with other firewall or security software. Unfortunately though other software can interfere with our blocking capabilities if they choose to disable different parts of Windows.

Sorry did you said “Security professionals choose to keep our firewall switched to “Off” and use GlassWire”. You mean keep other firewall to off? What I like about glasswire is the option to block specific apps to be honest. I have the firewall set to ON and sub-option to click to block. Is this wrong?

If you want to use Avast as your firewall you will have to keep GlassWire’s firewall set to “Off”. You can then choose to use GlassWire solely as a network security monitor.

Your other choice is to disable the Avast Firewall and use GlassWire’s firewall. Be sure and reboot after making the Avast settings change if you run into any issues.

How does glasswire compare to avast’s firewall? Yours isn’t really a firewall is it? I can’t choose now it’s a hard decision. I LOVE glasswire letting me block apps but don’t know how safe I am with avast firewall disabled.

The Windows Firewall API we use is trusted by over a Billion Windows users world-wide. Blocking is only a small part of GlassWire and we use the Windows Firewall API because it works great and it doesn’t conflict with other applications.

Although it’s possible for us to design some new unknown firewall technology we chose not to do so because we personally wouldn’t trust firewall protection on our PCs to some unknown technology with limited visibility into what it’s doing.

With GlassWire you have full visibility into our blocking functionality, in fact you can even make GlassWire block itself if you choose to do so.

Good luck on your decision and please note you can just use GlassWire as a network security monitor if you don’t use our firewall.

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I made a decision to go with Windows Defender + Glasswire since Avast still protects me when browsing. For some reason though Glasswire still gives me the same error message
“Your Windows Operating System Firewall is disabled. Firewall disabled by Avast Premium Security.”

Any clues? (I disabled avast firewall and rebooted)

@Billakos8

If you have no plans to use Avast perhaps just uninstall it and reboot, and hopefully the issue would go away. Or please ask Avast why you cannot use the Windows Firewall even when their firewall is disabled. They may have some tips about what’s going on and then we can share those tips here.

Sorry for the issue and thanks for using GlassWire.

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I’d recommend just uninstalling avast. They were caught not long ago spying on their user’s browsing history.

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Considering I am a very old avast firefox user; I must be in the list of those who’s data got collected.

Besides that; Avast and Malwarebytes has stopped me (thank god) from entering malicious and suspicious websites many many times. So I find avast a great tool. Would windows defender do the same? Would it have stopped me? It seems I will indeed have to uninstall and install avast again trying not to give it the management of my firewall at least. All the other tools seem and sound amazing (protection from hackers etc. I know they sound more fancy than they actually are but whatever).

As I said; I love glasswire but it is just an (amazing) monitoring software. Not a real time security software. So I don’t know how I can deal with the idea of not having an antivirus running.

I’d say you’re good if you’re using Microsoft Defender. It’s been the default since Windows 8. It’s very lightweight and runs efficiently. So you actually do have an antivirus if you’re using Microsoft Defender.

Malwarebytes and Firefox both are amazing. I do hope you’re using uBlock Origin with Firefox too!


With how avast/AVG has not just taken users data but sold it too, I would not trust their products ever again.

GlassWire actually uses the Microsoft Defender firewall via API I believe, so you’ve got great protection.

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