I’ve used previous versions for over a year and have been very pleased with how they work. I just bought a new HD for my notebook that I travel with and loaded it up with all the software I need. The major change was installing the latest version of CFP. This was done over the last couple days. Right now I don’t feel as confident I have it configured as well as I did the older version.
Issue 1) My wireless internet access at home has slowed down to about a quarter of the typical speeds I get. When I plug in an Ethernet cable it works fine. I put the old HD back in and my wireless works fine. I’ve read other posts about this and updated a driver (it was fine with the old version) but still no better. I don’t really expect too much help on this but if someone can help that would be great.
Issue 2) I want to find a simple way to tell CFP this application can access the Internet but that one can’t. Ideally some would never be allowed and I don’t get asked (bothered). For others, I’d like to be asked. An example that worked out wonderfully with my old version. Adobe always wants to connect to the Internet for who knows what reasons. The way my old system worked, if I clicked on a web page that wanted to open an embedded PDF file in browser, I’d get asked if Adobe could connect to the internet. That was great! I’ve changed so many settings I’m not sure what I’ve got happening now. Especially after I moved over 2000 pending files to my safe files folder.
Issue 3) This is more of a question. What are the concerns with using Avast. I see a lot of references to Avast being a proxy something or another. I don’t recall tweaking much in Avast before but let me know if there is something that may need to be tweaked to work with this new version please.
If I could get a simple explanation on how to make issue 2 work for me I may stick with this new version, 3.0.14.276. I’m trying to finalize my software config so I can make a good, fresh backup with Acronis True Image. I don’t want to do that until the bugs are worked out. In a couple more days I’ll have to go back to the old version as it’s about time to get back on the road.
Thanks in advance,
Mark
One last thing, what’s typically used for the network defense and proactive defense settings? I assume the latter should stay on Clean PC Mode but how about network defense? I tend to think it might be better off with Custom Policy mode to help out with Issue 2 above but am not sure. Thanks again.
I am using wireless with Vista Ultimate, and have no slowdown at all. For Comodo, go firewall/advanced/attack detection settings/miscellaneous and make sure they are all unchecked. Not a systemic problem, but we need to find out what is slowing things down. wired/wireless should be about the same.
To modify the firewall settings for any program, go to firewall/advanced/network security policy and find the application. You can either delete its rules, in which case you can answer its popups again, or preferred is to edit it to treat as a Web Browser, Trusted, etc. as appropriate. And put a block and log at the end of each ruleset in case something isn’t working quite right. You can select custom policy/ copy from based on such a ruleset and then add to it.
Avast! works very well with CFP3 and the latest 3.0.14.276. The proxy issue is because when you look at the log, your actual internet connection are through ashmaisv.exe, ashwebsv.exe, … when you try to look for things. And many users have multiple proxies to deal with. Or when you get the first one, select “treat as updater or installer” and when you get asked whether to switch to install mode, say yes, and then switch back when you get the later request.
As far as settings, train with safe mode works fine for the firewall, although you can eliminate some initial popups by going to training mode When you stop getting popups, you can probably go to custom mode. And if you installing large suites, it is better to do it without CFP3 to eliminate all of the popups you would otherwise get.
Thank you very much for the reply. I’m certain I can get this to work for me as I’m not completely computer illiterate, the issue is whether I can spend much more time on it this week or not.
Here’s what I just tried. I did a search for a web page that opens a PDF file as I described. It opened without asking me anything. I looked in the Network Security Policy section and didn’t have anything for Adobe Reader. I then added one telling it to ask me for any IP or TCP/UDP. It still opened the document without asking me. I then told it to block the access for Adobe Reader. I made the rule by adding from a running process to be sure I was getting the correct executable. Even blocked it didn’t stop to ask me but instead opened the document. I don’t know if this matters but the Adobe EXE was under Firefox, like a sub-directory. I’m fine with allowing Firefox to do what it wants, for now.
Does that mean I have Adobe Reader allowed somewhere else? Confusing if there are so many different places to make entries that affect an application.
To be more clear, I want Adobe to do whatever it has to or wants to within my computer. I really hated the dozens (hundreds) of popups asking me for permission for this or that and probably gave it too much permission along the way. I only want to stop it from leaving my computer without permission. I hope this makes more sense.
The Adobe Reader you are using from FF is actually a plug-in for FF, not the standard Adobe Reader call. It is accessed through nppdf32.dll in the Firefox plugin subdirectory.
Slowdown resolved. I had left WXP firewall on by mistake. I knew not to, at least I never did with my old system, and meant to turn it off but failed to.
On the issue of blocking programs, as sded mentions I do have a file named nppdf32.dll in my Firefox plugins folder. It doesn’t show up as an active process, though I don’t know if it should, but I do show AcroRd32.exe under the firefox.exe entry. I’m familiar with this dll as far as knowing it should be there for reader to work in a Firefox window/tab. I don’t recall blocking the dll in my old version but I certainly had the .exe file restricted. I’ll try restricting the dll file mentioned and see what happens.
I think in my haste I allowed too much access as I knew my software could be trusted and I was building my system offline. Now I need to learn how the precedence of rules works. I’ve begun reading the help file from start to finish and think I’ll be better off once I’m more familiar with the software.
Ultimately I want to let all (for the most part) software and files do what they want to do within my computer but block access to the Internet for many. As soon as I’m confident that the settings I change accomplish what I want to accomplish, I’ll be completely satisfied with this new version.
Thanks for the assistance and I’m still open to consider comments and suggestions.