Online Armor Firewall - What’s Your Opinion?
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Back In January of this year, Scot Finnie of Scot’s Newletter wrote a lengthy review of Online Armor Firewall, which he felt was the best firewall on the market. Scot wrote a glowing report on how he felt that OAF was better than Comodo or other firewalls that he tested. I trust Scot’s opinion and tried OAF, which I found easy to use, but with only one minor problem.
Before I proceed I must state that the OAF edition I used was the free version so my remarks have nothing to do with the paid versions that are offered. For the most part OAF runs without incident. It is light on resources and blocks traffic in and out, which is an improvement over the firewall that comes with Windows XP. For those that are using Vista, it also has the ability to block traffic both ways.
So why is blocking traffic both ways important? The theory is that if your systems gets a bug, it will not be able to call home like ET did. The only problem, or I should say annoyance is that OAF pops up anytime traffic is moving back and forth. This little annoyance is a small price to pay for a software that is free for use.
But what I would like to hear about is your opinion. What do you think of OAF? Let us know.
Comments welcome.
6 Comments
earlwallace
September 15th, 2008
at 3:40pm
I downloaded beta version 3 for vista (not sure it will be free, trial version beta for 30 days}. So far I have found it technologically superior to any of the most popular firewalls out in the cloud. I recommend it to my readers.
Earlwallace
abbynormal
September 16th, 2008
at 2:47am
I’ve been using OA (free version) for a couple of years, and I can tell you, when properly configured, you don’t get constant popups asking for (traffic) permission.
The only times I get a popup asking me to allow or deny, is when new software is getting installed (which is good - it keeps rogue software from installing itself, without your knowledge).
Last time I looked, OA (free) passed all the leak tests at Matousec; It scored better than other better known and popular firewalls.
In short, OnlineArmor rules…!!!
Geoff
September 16th, 2008
at 11:24am
I tried OA several months ago after reading the great reviews. Unfortunately, it had some conflicts with my system (as sometimes happens with firewalls). Uninstalling didn’t completely remove it, and I had to do some searching online to find the remnants I needed to remove (I continued to have occasional crashes). I switched to Comodo, which has worked perfectly for me.
If Online Armor doesn’t cause any problems on your system and you get a clean reading from ShieldsUp, then go for it. If you have problems like I did, give Comodo a shot.
Laz
September 17th, 2008
at 12:19pm
I have been using the paid version since Scott’s review.
The pop-up’s subsided once I used all the software on
the machine, and the firewall was acclimatized. Now only new installations invoke the warnings. I find the “Banking Mode” to be most gratifying when dealing with financial institutions, or making on line purchases. The only complaint I have is the use of miniature fonts in the pop-ups, when presented.
Used in conjunction with Spyware Doctor, the combination provides a secure environment (To date!)
Previously I used Comodo, which is an excellent product as well, but I find OA to be easier on the resources.
Benjamin Yakubu
October 2nd, 2008
at 5:39am
In a space of 5days, I have tried Online Armor, Zone Alarm 8, Comodo, Sunbelt, Outpost I always keep uninstalling and reinstalling Online Armor (Free) - it has given me no reason to complain at all.
Zone Alarm slows my PC at startup so much its horrible. It slows down my net access too (I guess with a little tweaking of its settings this may be fixed - but on first use such behaviour is not very nice)
Sunbelt was too slow to respond. My rig is quite fast so its the app.
Outpost was interfering with my connection a little bit too much, noticed great improvements after I shut down the app!
Comodo is cool, almost as good as OA Free but only issue is you have to set many rules to get a good program working flawlessly and securely. Or you simply let Comodo do it for you… Not always spot on.
Now I am back to Online Armor and sticking to it…
Cheers
Note: My above comments may not apply to everyone who installs and use the firewalls, as I suspect my version of Windows XP may have a number of stuff installed that could affect the performance of the firewalls - hoping to upgrade XP to SP3 soon. Overall Online Armor performed excellently even in those conditions.
Forza
February 28th, 2009
at 5:58am
Online Armor is a good firewall.
The only reason I uninstalled it is because I had long term problems with Avast antivirus 4.8 and Online Armor 3.0.0.190.
One of them had to go because neither software company had a fix. Apart from the compatibility issues between Avast and OA I have nothing bad to say about OA.