I’m having two major issues with the program. Currently I have GlassWire firewall set to “Ask To Connect”.
The first issue is, when I deny a program access they still connect to the internet. I’ve attached an image showing Cortana accessing the internet despite being blocked. This is unacceptable for a firewall considering the whole point is to block access.
The second issue I have is that the “Ask to connect” pop up is delayed and programs have access to the internet before it pops up. I opened up a new program and it updated and restarted and then GlassWire asked me if I wanted to allow it. Much like the first issue, this shouldn’t happen with a Firewall.
More Info:
The only other security programs I’m running on my PC is the Windows 10 Security Centre, and Malwarebytes Premium.
Also I already tried the whole “Uninstall Glasswire, restart, reset windows firewall, and reinstall using the clean install option”.
The picture above is AFTER I did the whole uninstall/reinstall procedure because I noticed the program was allowing blocked applications to acess the internet.
@LarceNewYork
If you go to the top left GlassWire menu and choose “About” is GlassWire still activated as a paid version?
Is it possible that maybe you were in “Click to block” mode before you had a chance to turn on “Ask to connect” and the Cortana connection happened in that time period?
Do you use any other applications that access the Windows Firewall API that could be interfering with GlassWire? I see you say above that you only use Malwarebytes and Windows 10 Security Center, but is it possible you used another application in the past?
I hate to ask you to do this, but could you try the cleaning process again one more time? Don’t forget to reboot. I have not seen this problem before so it makes me wonder if somehow the Windows Firewall was not reset to its defaults somehow for some reason.
Yes GlassWire is still activated.
No it’s not possible because I disconnected the ethernet cable from my computer and switched GlassWire to “Ask to Connect” prior to reconnecting the internet. Meaning my computer had no access to the internet before switching over to “Ask to Connect” (And I don’t have Wifi on my desktop). Additionally, since yesterday several programs have not had the popup, and were blocked access however they were still accessing the internet.
No I don’t use any other applications that may interfere with the firewalls with the exception of Malwarebytes premium and W10 security center.
I can do the reinstall process again but to what end? The issue was present on my first install, I performed the reinstall and the issue still existed. The fact that I lost over 50 or so custom application settings when I performed the first reinstall isn’t acceptable, I paid $70 Canadian for this software. There has to be a better answer than “Reinstall”.
Edit: Here are three programs which didn’t have the “Allow or Deny” popup come up, install the progarm just had the “First network activity” pop up come up and “blocked” them however they are still accessing the internet.
@LarceNewYork
We use the Windows Firewall API, so the reason we suggest a reinstall using the instructions above is because it resets the Firewall if it was somehow changed by another application or if Windows itself caused a change some way due to some overall OS problem.
I recommend trying the reinstall process one more time and if it does not work please email us https://www.glasswire.com/contact/ where we can make a custom version of GlassWire with logs that may be able to pinpoint the problem.
Alright well I preformed the reinstall again. Doubt it’s gonna work but we’ll see. What is happening with the 2.0 version? I’ve seen posts from a year ago saying it is coming and I was hoping that would fix my problems but I haven’t heard anything about its release.
Edit:
Well it didn’t work. In fact here is glasswire itself breaking its firewall rules.
@LarceNewYork
You said you had a new install of Windows. Have you run all the latest Windows Updates? Could you try that and see if it solves the problem?
Meanwhile we received your email and we are investigating on that side also. I apologize for the problem.
I never said I had a new install of windows, my Windows version isn’t new. But regardless I’m on Windows 10 Pro, version 1703, OS Build 15063.483 which is the most recent build of Windows 10.
Sorry, I got you mixed up with another thread. I’m glad you have the latest Windows updates so we can rule that out.
Interesting thought, but…
I do know that Microsoft Edge has the ability to ignore the hosts file when going to certain Microsoft websites - go ahead and redirect Bing to yahoo or google in the hosts file - Chrome or Firefox will be redirected, but Edge will go to Bing anyway. So I wouldn’t be surprised if other built in apps have similar abilities - for instance - Cortana might have the ability to ignore the Windows firewall, and as Glasswire is basically an elaborate GUI for the Windows Firewall, that ability would extend to Glasswire as well.
If so… I’m pretty sure the only solution would be to uninstall her.
@Toad_004
A huge number of companies and products use the Windows Firewall API to block things for many different reasons and it is possible to block Cortana, Edge, and other Microsoft apps. I am sure, because I block it on my machine and on our test machines.
Lots of companies rely on the Firewall API and if Microsoft did this there would be outrage from thousands of companies and probably millions of Windows users.
We will test some more on the latest Windows versions to be absolutely sure nothing crazy changed recently.
@LarceNewYork
Our team has these comments:
“The popup delay does not affect the ability of the app to access the Internet. We block all connections by default and if there is a new blocked connection we show the popup. If the GlassWire user interface is restarted when there is an unanswered firewall popup, the popup will not appear again later, but the app will stay blocked. Maybe this is the case.”
So even if your popups are delayed, GlassWire should still block the apps in “Ask to connect” mode.
Also some users have had concerns that when GlassWire is upgrading between versions their connections will get through, but even on updates GlassWire should not let the connections happen in “Ask to connect” mode. That’s one bonus to using the Windows Firewall API.
The team asked if you would email us us a screenshot of the Windows Firewall settings (Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Firewall, Advanced settings) via email for privacy reasons. I will ask this also via email, but I wanted to mention it in the forum in case another user in the future has this problem there will be a record of a solution.
