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Is the WSA A/V firewall compatable with other InternetSecurity Suites' firewall or is it best to turn it off?

 

If you turn it off what features of WAS A//V do you lose.

 

I am currently running WSA A/V with Emisoft IS 9 and there does not appear to be any issues between the operation of the firewalls.My PC runs smoothly and fast and websurfing seems to be totally unaffected.

 

So just as WSA breaks traditional thinking about running two anti-malware products, does it also break the traditional advice against running two frewalls simutaneously?
Hello hawkeye, 

 

WSA Firewall is of course compatible with Windows Firewall: Windows monitors inbound and WSA monitors outbound.

 

As for having the Firewall of WSA and another AV Vendor on at the same time... I am really not sure, but let me get by with a gut feeling here.  Since WSA is generally compatible with any other AV software, and the suggestions for installing WSA on a system that already has a different AV software do not include mention of the Firewalls specifically, my guess is that it will work OK.  If you notice a problem, you might disable one of them, but it might very well work without any interference.
If I may here, David?

 

Two firewalls per se running on the system is a definitive no-no/just asking for trouble...and I say this from experience

 

As to having the WSA Firewall and another AV Vendor (but must be as a replacement for the WIndows Firewall) on at the same time...the answer is 'Yes'.  

 

There are several members including our own TripleHelix (Look n'  Stop, if I am not mistaken), and  myself, in the past running KIS & WSA together.  I also believe that some members (forget the handles) have or are running WSA with NIS, etc.

 

David is quite correct when he states that WSA is generally compatible with any other AV/IS software (except BitDefender) and whilst there is no mention of the Firewalls specifically, it defintively is OK.

 

But running any other two firewalls together...as I said above...receipe for problems.  So another unique point for WSA.

 

And before yo ask...Yes, WSA & Windows Firewall together are IMHO as tough a nut to crack as any single software firewall package on the market.

 

Hope that helps?

 

Regards, Baldrick
@ wrote:

If I may here, David?

 

 

 

As always, of course you can!  Thank you very much for the additional detail.... I do appreciate it :)

 

 

 
Thank you both for taking the time to help :-)

 

What's interesting is that I am using WSA A/V with EMIS 9 which now incorporates the Bitdefender Engine. The firewall is a watered down On Line Armor.

 

Both programs appear to be working as they should with both firewalls turned on. Does the WSA FW do anything other than block suspicious outgoing connections. EMSI has shown to be excellent at that so unless the WSA Firewall is associated with any other function I think 'll turn it off. I have heard bout the problems of running BD and WSA, but EMIS 9 appears to have incorporated BD in such a way that I see no signs of any issues.If there were a conflict or issues that compromised either would I be aware of them??

 

I have always used WSA with the firewall on both with KIS, despite Kaspersky's excellent firewall, and  NIS and would feel naked w/o it on my machine 🙂
Well, thank you for your imformative reply hawkeye!  

 

As I noted to begin with, I am no guru on the Firewall apects... Since installing WSA I have not bothered with any other firewall, so I am trying to read all the replies here and learn a bit myself 🙂
Hi hawkeye

 

I am not sure but I do not think that it is the engine that is the issue but rather the implementation of it...after all the engine just does the raw work and it is the presentation and use of the results that will vary between apps using the same engine...so I suspect that you are correct in your assertion of no issue with WSA & EMIS 9. Which is good news for you.

 

The WSA outbound firewall's modus operandi is much more subtle than you might imagine...the design philosophy is such that it actively cedes priority when it detects that another firewall is installed and is covering the outbound connections//traffic, but it will jump in if it detects that the other firewall has let something out that WSA believes it should not...sort of watches the watcher so to speak...so you get the benefits of a layered defence on outbound.

 

And for that reason I would really recommend that you do not disable the WSA firewall, as you will see no discernable gain in performanceor lowering of resource usage if you do...plus you loose you layered defence...and most annoying of all is that WSA will persistently warn you of the firewall being disabled (GUI colour gpes Brown & tray icon is grey with Brown exclamation mark) and so if there is another iss for which WSA should warn you you may not notice (but not in the case of a threat as everything goes Red irrespective of whether the base stateis Brown or Green).

 

I hope that I have managed to convince you to leave the WSA firewall well alone...butbultimately the choice is yours.

 

Feel free to ask further questions as and when required.

 

Regards, Baldrick
Thank Tou Baldrick 🙂
hawkeye

 

You are most wellcome and thank yo for posting such an interesting question.

 

Regards, Baldrick

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