AGH1965

Actually I don't think allowing wildcards is the best way to go. I just tried it as a temporary work-around. Personally I would like the firewall to recognize updated versions of apps that already have their own firewall rule. So basically the same behavior as with apps that are updated in the same folder. If the firewall recognizes an updated version in a new folder, then I want to be asked to keep and update the existing firewall rule or not.

Thanks for your reply, FeMaster. Now I feel understood. You described exactly what I experienced. Indeed HxTsr.exe is one of the annoying apps. Switching to "Automatic" mode isn't a solution. I don't understand why the majority of users uses that mode, since if I would want to allow all outgoing network communication automatically, then I would probably use Windows firewall.

Trying to use wildcards was one of the first things I did, but indeed the firewall doesn't accept these.

No replies at all? Am I the only person on this world that uses the firewall's interactive mode?

Until recently I used EIS and ESS in Windows 7 with the firewall's interactive mode activated. That way I can control which applications on my computer can access the internet and which can't. Once this approach made me detect a virus even before ESS recongized it. Recently I switched to Windows 10 and I continued using EIS firewall's interactive mode as I did before. Unfortunately the Windows apps that are located in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps keep moving to different subfolders when they are updated. This means that I have to continue adding new firewall rules for the same apps over and over again. This makes using EIS firewall's interactive mode quite annoying. Is there a solution for this that I'm not aware of?

ESET Banking & Paymant Protection doesn't make use of the "InPrivate" window of Internet Explorer and the "Incognito" window of Google Chrome. Why not?

In the meantime I found out that the buttons are still there if you use an account with administrator rights. What's the idea behind that? I get it that not everybody is supposed to stop scans, but in the past the buttons were always there and if you used them with an account without administrator rights, then a dialog popped up asking for the administrator password. That approach makes sense, but the current doesn't.

Recently I noticed that the buttons to pause or stop a scan are no longer there in ESET Smart Security 9.0.408.1. How do I stop a running scan? The attached picture shows the buttons that are missing now. Background: I use the scheduler to run a weekly scan. Every now and then the scheduler starts this weekly scan twice. (That bug is already present since ESET Smart Security 6 or even longer.) If I notice that there are two scans running simultaneously, then I kill one of these. Unfortunately that is no longer possible, since the buttons to pause or stop a scan are no longer there.

Patience seems to be the keyword. The problem disappeared without doing anything.

The secured browser (banking & payment protection) of ESET Smart Security 9.0.408.1 doesn't start anymore after installing the Windows 7 updates of December 13th. If I use the desktop icon, then nothing happens and no error message is shown, but if I try to visit the website of the bank with the normal browser (Internet Explorer 11), then a message is shown that the secured browser can't be started because of error 0x847694d2. How can I solve this? I already tried disabling and enabling of the banking & payment protection integration in the system, but that didn't help.

Today my problem appears to be solved too. The secure Internet Explorer looks normal again, including address bar.

Something has changed since this morning. When I try to open the protected browser by clicking on the desktop icon, the protected browser now does open, but it doesn't have an address bar. ESET, what is the purpose of a browser without address bar??? (Configuration: Windows 7, Internet Explorer 11, ESS 9.0.402.1.)

Same problem here. I need to reach the website of my bank. Can I fiddle around with the ESS settings to 'fix' this?

@Marcos: Thanks for answering my question! @Arakasi: Why do you use so many words if you don't have a clue?

The reply of Arakasi confuses me. Apparently smart optimization uses hashes, but you can't determine hashes without opening files. Does this mean that even skipped files in terms of scanning are not skipped completely, since they have to be opened to detemine hashes?

The statement above caught my attention. Is it wise to skip scanning a file because of a timestamp? What timestamp is meant here? What if the timestamp was manipulated by a threat to prevent discovery? Please, convince me that smart optimization is safe to use!

I fully agree with Janus. It's not logical that the "Default" button doesn't restore the original default settings. The behaviour might be understandable for someone who knows how ESS 7 was programmed, but in my opinion the developer should look at the software from the user's point of view, not the other way around!

First I removed ESS 7 from one of my systems and reinstalled it. Then I checked the ThreatSense settings of the scan profiles. Fortunately the smart optimization setting appeared to be enabled in the smart scan profile and disabled in the in-depth scan profile. However, when I pressed the "Default" button, the smart optimization setting of the in-depth scan profile was enabled automatically! This must be a bug!

Thanks Arakasi. I looked again at the ThreatSense settings of these profiles. It is very strange, but the in-depth scan profile and the smart scan profile have identical default settings. (Yes, I used the "Default" button over and over again...) Apparently the default settings of the ESS 7 installations on both my systems got messed up. Or could this be a bug in the Dutch version of ESS 7? Nevertheless I started an in-depth scan on the system that previoiusly skipped most of the files, but this time with the smart optimization disabled. Now the scan lasted 24 minutes instead of less than 2 minutes. That seems more normal. Because of the messed up default settings reinstalling ESS 7 might still be useful though. Any other suggestions?

Thanks, Janus. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the smart optimization causes the problem, since it's enabled on both my systems and only one system behaves strangely. Besides, smart optimization is enabled by default, but I can't imagine that ESS 7 is supposed to skip most files by default. (If you disable smart optimization and press the "Default" button, then it is enabled automatically.)

I might have found a topic about a similar ESS 7 issue: https://forum.eset.com/topic/1736-ess-7-wont-scan/ Hopefully someone comes up with a nice and simple solution, since I'm not too fond of reinstalling ESS 7.

The in-depth scan of ESET Smart Security 7.0.302.26 of one of my systems skips most of the files. Scanning almost 70 GB of files takes less than 2 minutes, even though I configured the ThreatSense engine that it should scan all files. The progress bar goes immediately after the start to more than 95 %. On another system a similar scan takes much, much longer and the progress bar moves slowly to the right. Does anyone know a reason for this strange behaviour on the first system?