Minimalfirewall: Minimal Firewall is a portable Windows firewall without requiring custom kernel modifications or disabling core isolation

General
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Really easy and straightforward to use. I’ll keep using it. Thanks!

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Gotta walk that back a bit. There were a few usability issues I just couldn’t get to work, so I have to go back to simplewall. I’m sure it’ll be a solid program in the future, but in my opinion, it’s still a bit of a work in progress.

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Mind going over what the issues were?

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I like the concept of this Windows based Firewall but am finding it difficult to work.

I use Mullvad Browser and Mullvad VPN on Windows 11 Pro.

This is obviously a training issue for myself but Mullvad VPN will not work no matter what “rules” I set to allow full “inbound/outbound” use by any Mullvad listing I find.

This is my first stumbling block and is preventing me from utilizing what I think may be a great firewall for Windows.

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Well, first off, if you’re coming from simplewall, this is way too basic. Then, I don’t know what caused it, but it froze several times in lockdown mode, which was really annoying. You’ll probably be happy with it if you’re not switching from simplewall, but I decided to try it since they compare themselves to simplewall on their GitHub page.

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I see, that makes sense.

I’m always interested in these types of applications even though every time I use one I end up causing myself more issues then solving :sweat_smile:

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Well, this shouldn’t be too hard to learn, so it might be a good fit for you if you’ve got a bit of patience.

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Yes, there are still issues to be worked out. About a day after you posted this I fixed some issues with the wildcard rules, which might fix those problems with Mullvad. You can try creating a wildcard rule with the entire Mullvad folder, and the Mullvad daemon.

But perhaps not. I’ve only tested with Wireguard and OpenVPN. Mullvad documentation says it creates its own firewall rules, and if it’s creating them deeper on the WFP, there is no telling which rule will supersede another. Or a more likely issue is that Minimal Firewall sets the Windows Firewall so that every app/service is blocked unless it has a rule. So if Mullvad is creating filters rather than rules in Windows Firewall, it might block them, in which case Mullvad will never work.

Someone else can probably shine more light on how and why Mullvad does this.

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Did you mean to reply to someone else? I use ProtonVPN myself.

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Oh yes, my fault. I meant @anon1234

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