Someone should write a software that just send random wierd data to those sites microsoft sends data to.

Windows ignores the hosts file for certain domains related to Windows Update and Windows Defender. It's done in order to prevent malware from abusing the hosts file in order to prevent Windows from being updated.

My concern is with any 3rd party apps is that they sometimes inadvertently block services that are required by your apps to work properly. And then comes time for long debug processes and it eventually turns out that the 3rd party app you installed was causing the problem all along.

Sorry but I would expect you to show what this portmaster is also sending away to their servers while recommending it. I'm guessing you did your due diligence but it's better to show that to users too, because now I feel like I'm just swapping whos spying me rather than stopping it

Thank you for this. I've been playing the same game for four years. My ping was always at 44ms. With Portmaster my ping dropped from 44 to 40-39ms. That is a nice improvement!

this was posted 30 seconds ago? And i got the recommendation?

I’m using comodo firewall, do you recommend swapping to this one? Because I like the control of the processes that comodo gives me and port master doesn’t have (or at least you didn’t show us)

I do most of this via my firewall but going to check this out as it's always nice to have open source apps to recommend to my less tech savvy friends.

I have a Synology router which has a great way to create filters to block these web sites. It would be really nice to just have a list of the spy web sites to add to these filter without having to introduce yet another app or service. Great video and very much appreciated.

Your channel is great bro. As a former sysadmin, I get so frustrated with people promoting AV crap just for $$$. You are honest, to the point, and give real world quantifiable data. On a side note, you sound a bit like Buildzoid (a guy with a name in the motherboard and gpu hobbyist arena for analyzing board layouts).

I have a question : i have Kaspersky Total Security installed, is this kind of Firewall is compatible with ? ( Because Kaspersky T.S include is own Firewall and maybe it can create conflicts, slow-down or instability ? )

Will definitely add Portmaster to the list of software to investigate. Question, does this replace O&O Shutup? Also question about crowdsec, does it replace having AV software like Kaspersky or Sophos? Thanks

I simply use malwarebytes firewall control. It is free and can be set to block everything by default and ask about unlocking. It is hard to tell what you can block (for example gaming services might be necessary for gamepass games) so you need some epxerimentation.

I use Simplewall to block everything by default and allow connections manually, is a lot of work at the start and not so friendly but still a great tool! Will def give this a try as well

I love plug-ins that provide these type of services but always recommend a dedicated hardware firewall which protects the whole network. I use the Firewalla Gold which is extremely easy to set up and manage but of course there are others as well.

What a fantastic tool! Thanks for sharing this with us :)

You also recommended Comodo Firewall before. How would you compare these two?

what a nice information will be, is to know how much CPU usage those apps have? i had Comodo Internet Security for couple months and makes my system feeld a little bit slower after a fresh install, and i looked in the task manager and saw, that comodo uses 10-15% from my CPU (5800 x3d).

Holy shit this is awesome! Open source, great looking, simple with advanced settings! Great share!

It causes "youtube's 5 second adblock defence" to kick in , slows everything down

So far, so good. Thanks. Generally, if it's Open Source, I'm in, almost always more secure due to how it's developed.

I really like Portmaster too I just wish it was more compatible with DNSCrypt and other VPNs without needing to do any config changes

This should complement Simplewall so well

does this by any chance introduce any latency when playing games? does it reduce internet speeds?

I used simplewall for a while, this might be a nice one to try

Thank you very much. I am looking at the options, specifically the Plus, I can cover the lack of SPN with a DPN.

I'm happy to see that a bigger channel promotes the portmaster software, it's an amazing privacy tool that's easy to use! Every windows user should have this on their PC because it's free and opensource and protects your privacy. You can block all major tech companies in the filterlists settings! Simplewall is great but this is more advanced and superior. Great video mr security!

Finally portmaster presented in tpsc 🎉🎉 Maybe the SPN next ?

I assume you do not have to disable the Windows firewall? The two firewalls are running side by side?

Hey TPSC, I was wondering is it possible to disable Windows Defender so that we can use PortMaster? If so, can you make a video on how we would do that properly, please? Thanks for everything you upload.

out of curiosity how would portmaster interact with an AV if it has a built-in firewall for example Kaspersky Internet Security and so on? I assume it is best coupled with an AV that doesn't include a Firewall?

Hi Leo, I am a big fan of your channel. Thank you for all you do!

Any chance you've been able to place wireshark on your network -- or is it check hardware firewall logs -- to see if traffic to these nefarious IP truly stops once that application is used? Nice to "trust but verify".

I had tried this or similar one few months ago, had issue with it eating ram and endings up restarting the app every few hours to avoid that, cause system slowdown and ended up just adding blocklist in host and using other ways in system filters

You've sparked my interest!!!

Not installing anything, unless it's free and open-source.

Problem is that after I installed Portmaster, it broke my remote connections to other computers, so had to uninstall it as I could not find what it was blocking...

You just gained A new subscriber . Btw lately i figured out i had a rat and a miner in my laptop because of security tools you mentioned in your videos After disinfection,i made sure that my pc is well secured with the tools you said in your vids❤️👍

Portmaster does not sit well with VPNs or similar virtual network devices, however

I block those on my router firewall together with country block, but list of all those trackers and what are the use of it (like for instance not to block "tracking" service that just checks that you have internet connection) would be nice

I installed this but my web browsing has become unpredictable with some sites not coming up while others are fine. I've had to reboot my system one time because this was clogging something in the OS. Finding fixes is difficult. This app needs a very good in depth tutorial. When I shut it down, everything goes back to normal.

Been using this since it was in beta, it’s pretty good!!

While it is useful, you can't leave it and forget since it'll most possibly be a source of "why is x application not working" a lot of times because of its global "Force block incoming connections" rule and it wanting you to use a DNS server and nagging you about it (Had cloudflare and was wondering why almost all sites weren't working, turned out cloudflare was down back then and portmaster was routing my DNS to it, so when things are malfunctioning this the first thing i look at now aside from incoming connections) Also sometimes it classifies things it cannot properly identify as "Network noise", ran into issues with streaming software like Sunshine and had to disable incoming connections ruling for all the "noise connections" to save myself hours of more guesswork Just something to be aware of that's going to make your like much easier when using this

I'm wondering if there will be any video about recent malware called Pikabot, I'm curious about how it hides and spreads.

Does this work together with another firewall? Meaning having 2 firewalls, this one and the one from my AV. So having this one for blocking things from MS while my main firewall from my AV deals with everything else. Thanks.

Seems like a great tool. Thank you for the video. Comodo free firewall has been suggested to be adequate, but can Portmaster compare to it and other known paid products - it would be good with your expertise if possible if you could test this? Thanks again.

That was a lot more than just one click

After restarting pc I noticed I was automatically blocked by accessing internet. After playing around I disabled my Avast shields and net came back on. Do I just disable firewall in Avast and still use other features of Avast?

Hi, when can we get another free av test-comparison? Love your channel

what if an app from a lambda company escalate to ring-0 using a private technique they developed themselves and hide it self from this userland firewall is this a possible scenario ?

@pcsecuritychannel The moment I installed this program, Windows 11 Pro "Smart App Control" allowed the install. Every connection on my computer was blocked including any and all internet communications. "Smart App Control" will not let me use the uninstaller and I had to install a premium version of an antivirus and quarantine the app, but technically it is still installed since "Smart App Control" from Windows 11 will not allow the uninstall. Do you have any tips?

Has someone confirmed that: 1) the source has no precompiled binaries; 2) it compiles without needing to download any precompiled binaries; 3) when executing it literally can't automatically download and then run or link to any precompiled binaries/libraries or scripts?

Thank you for what you do. Keep up the good work

does it run nice along with an AV? this does seem like something I want to test out see what apps I have doing things. I guess I could just it and see what my AV does.

Hi, thank you for the information. Can you also please do third party software firewall testings/review as well. 😂

sorry one doubt remained, does this program replace a regular firewall? Should i disable my current firewall to install it?

I'll have to check it out and thanks for the FYI.

I m using kasperksy plus, would it be suggested using this alongside or is it still better to use kaspersky firewall?

You always post most useful advice and recommendations here. Thank you!

You can just use Control-D at Router or device level to do the same thing. and it has similar features + added Proxy for bypassing specific app based IP or the whole device.

This software is well known by linux users. It is also very handy software.

Been using Port master with Linux and even it doesnt help as much as it would on Windows, it still helps blocking some ads in my games and complements ublock

How does this compare to something like adguard? I think the desktop version of adguard does something similar.

How can I get portmaster to work alongside Bitdefender? Portmaster works for a little bit than comes up with compatability issues.

Thanks for the video!

Portmaster shows up in many sites. Which to download from?

was looking for a safe link to portmaster here - a search does not instill confidence of what to click on

Does not NextDNS block Windows spying? It also has great ad blocking and other security features....plus nothing to install.

someone who uses it answer me - will work with vpn or will it slow them or cause problems, plus will make latency and ping bad for games because if it does not block them still data will go thought it hence increasing latency, also some anticheat for games are very sensitive will it cause problems.

WIll portmaster do much the same as the adguard app (not extension, but app)?

I have trouble handling GIT Hub because I don't understand it. I did not find an MSI file for Windows. Where can this be easily downloaded that avoids the complications of GIT hub?

Hi there, it was a very useful and informative tutorial video, please upload more about free and open-source Firewall , This topic is very interesting. thnx

i have bitdefender internet security with its own firewall it will not collide with eachother ?

Good to know..tnx... but how does it play with windows firewall, do they get on well together?

A Video Idea: how safe is a Sandbox really. testing multiple sandboxes like Virtualbox VM, Windows Sandbox.. e.t.c and showing the worst case scenario if flaws are being used.

thanks for covering this Application

Is there no way to disable settings in windows that windows does connect to certain websites ? i rather have own control over settings then some 3rd party software

A problem with Firewalls on Windows I've noticed is some AntiVirus softwares enforce their own Firewall (like Bitdefender) and thus bypassing all custom rules we set as Windows Firewall rules..which is slightly annoying

i used old version of portmaster and that version did not log your every activity, but in this new version they log everything what software you open and what website visit etc and that seems pretty sus to me even it's open source!

Sadly, it heavily interferes with my strong anti-spyware and adblocking software called Adguard, not sure if Adguard does already what Portmaster

What do you think about portmaster vs glasswire?

14 minutes with 800 visualisations is insane!

Hi, please make a tutorial video about Sophos Firewall for Homes and small offices. thnx

Would love to see a comparison between Portmaster and Glasswire, both Free and Paid options.

When I downloaded and installed Portmaster, I could not connect to any sites with any of my 3 browsers (Edge, Google. Firefox). I only got a error message that stated, "Could not connect to the Internet, would you like to retry?" Once I uninstalled port master, then I could reconnect to the internet again. Go figure? I guess I will keep playing with it although when I first installed Portmaster, I went with the default settings

Can you make video listing sandbox which we can use to make sure if a file is malware or not

Maybe others have asked, but how much does Portmaster spy on you, in stead of Windows? Do they now log my internet activity?

Since the software already running on the pc itself, how do we know Windows isn't just going around this software?? This is already inside the machine you want to block, how to know the traffic is really blocked anyway? This is like Android and appleproducts, you can turn off tracking and stuff, but how do yoy really know the button actually turn off what its suposed to do..

Can we use it with Bitdefender total security? can it interfer with it? thanks

3:49 what does he mean "I wouldn't recommend it as a replacement for an AV"? Thanks.

Where is the site that you download from, I wanna test on one of my vms

Will this break my computer? Everytime i use any anti virus things stop working and its super annoying

Can I use both Safing Portmaster and Crowdsec on my windows pc? Please help

I had a problem with this program , eventually he randomly starts blocking everything so i had to disable or uninstall to make things works again.

with a firewall like that should i disable the windows firewall or not ?

I like it. I would like it even more if this were running in layer 3.

maybe someone can help me with something i’ve had an issue with for a while. my PC wont automatically shut down, and occasionally starts back up from a shutdown at random. i’ve had no programs open and tried to let it shut down but it never happens. i’ve googled and done all of the things the most common threads were about the issue but nothing happens. i’m sure it’s a virus of some sort like a bitcoin miner, but malware bytes/defender doesn’t detect anything. anyone have any insight?

Can Portmaster be used with a concurrent firewall like Comodo?

would this make me lag more or have higher latency in games?

I use Simplewall (with Windows 10)- and use it the same way- and portmaster is often compared to it- Wondering if PC security channel could also check out Portmaster 's competitors (simplewall, and i THINK Glasswire?) [And yes, it's possible to also run BOTH Portmaster and Simplewall on Windows, to my knowledge- so there's a third option, BOTH] I use Portmaster on a Debian PC though, and it's pretty cool!