What is Eset Firewall Helper (ekrnEpfw) ?

[autobotranger 1]

Hello. I finally decided to upgrade my Windows 10 machine to Spring Creators Update bringing my OS to version 1803 build 17134.112.

Before doing the upgrade from W10 version 1709 I decided to uninstall my Eset Nod32 Antivirus version 11.1.54.0 to avoid any potential conflicts and issues doing the Windows 10 upgrade. So far everything seems smooth (fingers crossed). 

I have now reinstalled Eset Nod32 Antivirus version 11.1.54.0 using the official Live-Installer from the website and the installation was a succes.

However, I have now noticed something new in the Task Manager. Under services I now see that an additional service next to ekrn is running named ekrnEpfw described as "Eset Firewall Helper". Screenshot attached to this post.

This appears to be something new as this additional service was not showing when I was running Eset Nod32 Antivirus version 11.1.54.0 on Windows 10 version 1709.

My question is, what exactly does it do and why didn't it appear in the task manager on OS version 1709, despite being the same version of Eset Nod32 Antivirus? Is this something newly added for the new W10 Spring Creators Update? I'm especially curious about this since I believe the Antivirus version of Nod32 has never contained anything related to Firewall before? I also should add that I am running the standard Windows 10 Firewall built into the OS.

Hopefully someone from the Eset team can answer this. Thanks in advance.

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by autobotranger

[Marcos 5,074]

It was added in v11.1. It's an auxiliary service for internal purposes.

[Rimmel 1]

But why? More cr#p running in the background.

 

I simply disable the service - Nod32 AV didn't complain on reboot.

[Rockin_Eset 3]

I have the same question. If anyone answers, please be specific.

For "internal purposes", "to help the firewall" type answers are not helpful

 

What is eset firewall helper? Its sucking up a lot of resources. I started using Eset many many years ago because it was so light on resources. I understand the internet has gotten more involved than say 15 years ago, but ESET has gotten heavier in the past years. Id like to know what thi new "Firewall helper" really is. ts dragging in the most recources.. See Photo. eset firewall helper is highlighted in blue. Its at the very top. The most memory. If I need it fine. But Please explain

 

Thank you