Firewall program for manually allowing or blocking program network access

[K4sum1]

I've decided to split some ideas from the contributing post into their own topic, so I can better explain them in a single contained post. This is the firewall. I would really appreciate it if a program like this was made. It would improve the security of older/newer Windows versions alike.

What I want is a firewall similar to Comodo Firewall that is open source. The main thing I want is XP compatibility and works with VPNs that use TAP drivers like Wireguard. If possible, a UNIX port or version would be cool, but is secondary to a Windows version.

I think Fort Firewall could be used as the basis for this. From what I can see it has a few major pitfalls, however I haven't tried it myself yet so I don't know every issue or feature it has.

1: It seems to only block or allow at a base level. I would want to allow certain connections but block others. For example with svchost.exe I would want to only allow communication over port 53, 67, 500, and 4500, while everything else is blocked. Not entirely sure what 53/67 do, but if those are blocked, the internet just doesn't work. 500/4500 is for IKEv2 VPN. Everything else is blocked as it doesn't need to occur and is likely telemetry.

2: No Ask to Connect. It seems to be a planned feature, but not implemented yet. I would want to work like Comodo Firewall, which prompts me for every new connection that doesn't fall under a previous firewall rule.

3: The GUI is made in QT. This might be a problem for XP. QT is also very bloated. Something else like WxWidgets would be preferred, but maybe just downgrading QT to last XP compatible release would be fine.

[Duke]

In the past I've used Kerio Firewall on XP, the best firewall I've ever had. Nowadays I'm afraid it will be quite hard to find something that is still running on XP

Port 53 is for DNS and port 67 for DHCP, so yes they must have access to the network.
List of TCP and UDP ports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers
More details about a specific port on this site, e.g. port 53: https://www.speedguide.net/port.php?port=53

[K4sum1]

In the past I've used Kerio Firewall on XP, the best firewall I've ever had. Nowadays I'm afraid it will be quite hard to find something that is still running on XP

I currently use Comodo Firewall 8.4.0.5165. I was going to upgrade to 12.0.0.6818 (last to work on XP), however after using it in a VM I noticed it has a RAM leaking issue, so guess not. Current issues are does not work with certain VPN drivers like Wireguard or anything TAP based, and a very weird issue. I haven't 100% traced it to Comodo specifically just yet, but I'm fairly certain it is since I haven't seen it on a PC without it. Executable files (.exe) are being accessed by a SYSTEM process that nothing can identify for a short period after being seen in explorer. So if I open a directory and try to delete the .exe, it fails for a little bit saying the file is in use. If I download an executable file to my desktop or any window I have open, it will fail (Firefox pre 92) or get (1) appended to it. I can't get the issue to consistently happen either, I have machines, VMs, etc with this same Comodo version but no issue. However it appears to happen more often than not. I have everything else other than the firewall disabled, so I have no idea what it's doing or why this happens.

Was looking through the archives to get version names and found 10.0.1.6294 which used to be my preferred version, and I don't remember having the latter issue with it. Might try it again sometime.

[Duke]

Executable files (.exe) are being accessed by a SYSTEM process that nothing can identify for a short period after being seen in explorer. So if I open a directory and try to delete the .exe, it fails for a little bit saying the file is in use. If I download an executable file to my desktop or any window I have open, it will fail (Firefox pre 92) or get (1) appended to it.

Happens to me too with my Windows 7 virtual machine. I guess it's about the antivirus and/or maybe some service I've disabled.

[K4sum1]

Happens to me too with my Windows 7 virtual machine. I guess it's about the antivirus and/or maybe some service I've disabled.

Hmm, you might be right. I don't do these tweaks for most test installs, but why would it be inconsistent in the stuff I do tweak?

[Duke]

why would it be inconsistent in the stuff I do tweak?

I don't know what is going on but I have the feeling some things don't work in a VM the same as on a "normal" system. Sometimes it takes several long minutes before the file I've just downloaded is finally released by the system. Very annoying indeed