When going into the firewall tab, i realised that GlassWire is using windows firewall to allow/deny programs internet access. I think this is a bad idea because the firewall can be reset by malware or software trying to connect to the internet (I could easily make a program to reset and disable the firewall or even break it). Some antivirus software (Like BitDefender or Kaspersky) disables windows firewall automatically because it has it’s own firewall (Yes, i know you can revert that). This is a problem because i prefer restricting access through GlassWire because it keeps my network prefrences in one place, but it worries me that the firewall might stop or glitch and loose the rules.
It would be nice if GlassWire had it’s own firewall because malware wouldn’t be able to stop GlassWire’s firewall as it is less known to the public and hackers as the built-in firewall is. Also, antivirus software wouldn’t be able to stop GlassWire’s firewall because of the same reason.
Your statements need to be qualified because you are overstating the benefit of a proprietary GlassWire firewall.
No, it is not true that having a proprietary GlassWire firewall would prevent malware from stopping it.
Yes, there would be some protection in having hackers less familiar with the firewall. But there are at least three problems with this approach:
There is very little difference in how a firewall process operates so it doesn’t take much effort to work out how to disable any firewall because they rely on anti-malware software to protect them.
Anti-malware software would also be less familiar with the GlassWire firewall which means that it would be more likely to have less protection.
A new firewall would have to be maintained and would introduce a new set of bugs - is it worth it to do that? GlassWire could take an easier route and use another existing firewall product but that increases the likelihood of hackers already being familiar with the software.
We chose to use the built in Windows Firewall because it’s light (uses minimal resources), and it’s used by over a billion Windows users world-wide. It’s true that once malware is on your PC it can disable GlassWire, the Windows Firewall and any other security software you have.
I think the strength in GlassWire is more with its network security monitoring capabilities. Here is a Blog post about one of our first users who found malware his antivirus didn’t detect.
At least with GlassWire the graph is probably going to show you what’s going on with your PC, and when that strange “new” connection happens there will hopefully be a record so you can go back in time on our graph and see what happened and learn how you were infected.