TinyWall 3.4.1 – Maintenance release

TinyWall is a free software to harden and control the advanced firewall built into modern Windows systems. Includes the features that sets it apart from both commercial and freeware firewalls.

TinyWall gives Windows Firewall a sane and secure configuration and presents you with a simple interface where you can easily define what has network access and what not, while preventing other programs from modifing or overwriting your firewall settings.

Most firewalls are based on the same interaction principles. Basically, whenever an application is trying to access the internet, display a popup asking the user what to do. This is not only annoying for the user, but also less than secure. On an average computer, a lot of applications are trying to access the internet.

Displaying a popup for each app makes it very probable that unneeded applications will gain access to the network, as it increases the likelyhood of the user granting unnecessary rights to many applications. This phenomenon could be characterized as “security fatigue”, and at its extreme, the user does not verify any more what he gives internet access, but just blindly allows all programs that ask for it.

What this application does:

• Does not annoy you with popups at all, yet it is still extremely easy to add exceptions to your firewall rules.
• Actively blocks hundreds of trojans, viruses and worms.
• Does not require you to know about ports, protocols and application details.
• Prevents malicious programs from modifying the settings of Windows Firewall.
• Does not install drivers or other kernel components, is free and lightweight.

TinyWall Features:

• Multiple and easy ways to whitelist programs
• Automatic learning mode
• Firewall tampering protection
• Password lockdown of settings
• Quick modes, like Normal protection, Allow outgoing, Block all, Allow all and Learning mode
• Support for temporary/ timed firewall rules
• Port and domain blocklists
• Hosts file protection
• Option to always allow communication within LAN
• Option to restrict an application to the LAN
• Recognition of safe software and impostors
• Full IPv6 support
• List established and blocked connections
• View open ports on your machine
• 100% free and clean software. No fees, no ads, no paid upgrades.

The no-popup approach

TinyWall takes a different approach. It does not display popups that “urge users to allow”. In fact, it will not notify you of any blocked action at all. Instead of showing popups, TinyWall makes it easy to whitelist or unblock applications by different means. For example, you can just initiate whitelisting by a hotkey, then click on a window that you want to allow. Or, you can select an application from the list of running processes.

Of course, the traditional way of selecting an executable also works. This approach avoids popups, but still keeps the firewall very easy to use. Most importantly, with the no-popup approach, the user will only notice that a program has been denied internet access when he can’t use it any more. Consequently, users will only unblock applications that they actually need and none more, which is optimal from a security standpoint.

Changes in TinyWall 3.4.1:

• Only enumerate UWP packages on system if actually needed
• Add Last Modified column to application exceptions list
• Performance enhancements for Connections, Processes and Settings windows
• Don’t make unnecessary saves to config file
• Fix crash if AppX packages on host cannot be enumerated
• Fix Connections windows might occasionally show empty list of active/listener sockets
• Fix blocked IPv6 addresses shown backwards
• Fix for possible crash when extracting an application’s icon
• Mitigation for tray icon not visible after boot
• Add ability to open connections view by middle-clicking on the tray icon
• Update System.Text.Json to close potential vulnerability
• Update application database
• Update Chinese and Polish localizations

Changes in TinyWall 3.3.1:

• Add GitHub button to Settings window
• Change license to GPLv3
• Fix Korean localization not loading
• Update Chinese localization

Changes in TinyWall 3.3.0:

• Windows 10 and .Net Framework 4.8 are now prerequisites
• Do not require executable to exist when editing firewall exceptions in GUI
• Migrate serialization formats to JSON to avoid runtime code generation
• Migrate native libraries to .Net
• Many memory and performance optimizations
• Annotate for and enable null-state static analysis
• Code restructuring and modernization
• Deprecated code removal

Homepage – https://tinywall.pados.hu/

The download includes a native interface for 14 spoken languages.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11.

Size: 1.80 MB

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