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MRoutt
Former Member
Message 11 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Happens every time I open Firefox.  When I click the "more" button, it gives a message to the effect of "only allow programs you trust".  Since it is specifically alerting on IE and Firefox, I doubt there is another program that is blocked that these alerts would be referring to.

def0
Former Member
Message 12 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

There's a similiar thread here with dev response.

http://community.mcafee.com/message/114167#114167

MRoutt
Former Member
Message 13 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Saw that thread and while it is plausible that Active FTP could require the browser to accept an inbound connection, very few if any sites actually require Active FTP from what I have seen.  Further, I am going to call BS on the statement that certain plugins require unsolicited connections, simply put: I do not know of ANY plugin for IE or Firefox that actually needs to accept unsolicited inbound connections in order to work properly.  I am just getting tired of hearing nothing but excuses.

Message was edited by: MRoutt on 2/12/10 9:07:19 PM CST
wbleeds
Former Member
Message 14 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Totally agree with your posts... Total Protection suffers from some fundemental flaws in this area. I'm all for having a product make life easy and choose "default" options for people who may be unsure of what they are doing.. but a system that looks like you can over-ride settings but cant?? that's just rubbish programming.. I should know, I've been a commericial coder for years 😉

Poor job McAfee you should get this fixed. There are a lot of us out here who don't trust our apps to allow any old incoming connection... and No.. IE does not need it and god  knows I wouldn't want to give it that ability. If you give us an option (as you should) to set Outbound only.. please don't keep automatically trying to reset this or asking the same permission question over and over and over again...

I've been using McAfee for years but this "feature" is do dumbed up that I'm consedring cancelling and going elsewhere.

newjack
Former Member
Message 15 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

When I last posted in this thread i did not have 2010 yet.I also agree with some of what you are saying.Only because I have personally updated programs like firefox with an outbound only connection.I found that the best way it works for me is.Open up firewall,settings then smart advice & advanced settings.Then under security levels Check stealth.The next tab is smart advice & advanced settings I have checked ask me to decide and enable protection on start up.You should then receive a pop up on the programs that ask for access.Now some windows programs will receive automatic full access.Also Mcafee has about 12 programs in the firewall.Not sure about each one there.If you are still having problems then I guess you would have to do a support call.Good luck    

Message was edited by: newjack on 3/7/11 7:31:00 PM EST
wbleeds
Former Member
Message 16 of 25

Re: Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Hi Newjack.

Thanks for the advice. That's pretty much the way I have mine setup... Stealth mode, with advice set to "let me decide" and individual programs set to "Outbound only access". I think my big gripe is that Mcafee consider things like "Word, Excel, etc. and IE" as all requiring full access. If you override this and tell it "Outbound" only it will continually raise pop-ups saying they require access and you have to re-apply "Outbound" for practically every website you visit... you can imagine who tedious this gets very quickly.

The code solution is common practice and simple, and that's simply, when the pop-up is shown, give me an checkbox option to say "Don't ask me this question again" and then remeber my setting. I just find it a bit shoddy for a massive development team to be turning out product with such bad design features. I'll eat my own words shamefaced if I have missed something in the interface, but I am fairly sure I haven't.

In the meantime, until I find an alternative I will just go on clicking "Outbound only" twenty or thirty times per browsing session and nursing my conspiracy theories about MS influence and why all MS Office apps made it onto the "We MUST have FULL access" list???? LOL 😉

PhilF
Contributor III
Message 17 of 25

Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

This very question has repeatedly asked on this forum (by me and others).  McAfee's only response has been that this is the way the program was designed to operate.  I have the same configuration options set as you do, and have been complaining about this for about a year now... ever since I was updated to the 2010 version.  They are either choosing not to, or simply unable to, address this flaw.

newjack
Former Member
Message 18 of 25

Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Hey wbleeds, Not sure who told you that it was designed to work that way.I really don't use Excel a lot.But if I set my IE of firefox to outbound I never receive any more pop ups on my machine.If you are receiving that many a day.I would assume by the way mine works that something is not right with yours.Now keep in mind the only factors that are different is I don`t really use Word or Excel. I cant see those programs being the problem.But as far as the other programs browsers,malwarebytes,ect. I don't receive these pop ups.Just so you know.Unless somebody else has an answer for you.All i can suggest is Mcafee virtual technician top of this page under useful links.Then click tech support to go to MVT.If that find nothing then the only other thing I can think of is tech support (chat)    Sorry Good luck

PhilF
Contributor III
Message 19 of 25

Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

wbleeds
Former Member
Message 20 of 25

Firewall forcing programs to have "full" access to the internet

Hey Newjack. Excel and Word tend not to be too much of an issue, you open them and rarely connect to the internet through them.. but they do exhibit this behaviour.

The browser is the real pain... what you need to be able to say is "don't let the browser accept incoming connections from the internet". Although you can set this on your "program access" options under firewall settings.. it will keep on prompting you to allow inbound connections even though you explicitly set it to outbound. If you have not explicitly set it, or you accidentally clicked the wrong button once when answering this reptitive dialog you've opened up IE or Firefox to Full access both Inbound and Outbound... really, really not a good idea for a web browser!!! If you are not seeing this dialog then I can think of only a couple of things:

1) you're using older McAfee software (which didn't seem to exhibit this behaviour).

2) You are already set to Full access (when did you last check? - I've noticed the odd update resetting the settings to default.. which for the browser if Full access.

3) Perhaps browsing behaviour influences how often you see these pop-ups. I am forever opening new tabs, browser session and going to different sites. Not all sites trigger the inbound connection pop-up, but a fair few do.

4) You got a cool install bro... 😉 Touch nothing and don't upgrade to 2011 Total (cough) Protection

Joking aside this is a really big issue for a piece of Firewall software. Watching the recent updates I'm damn sure they are trying to fix this as new Information alert options are being added to the GUI. I just don't understand how why this feature would ever be added in the first place. If you have a descending level of access ruleset - Full -> Outbound -> Stealth etc. why bother undermining the whole thing by giving programs default Full access? Makes no sense to me.

Anyway whinge over. Thx for the input. I ain's sticking with software that doesn't fill its basic function when their are plenty competitors on the go. Bye Bye Bin Bin McAfee!!!

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