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Activation (connecting to the net) before Firewall enabled... is it a risk?


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Hi. I have a question about firewall and product activation of ESET Cyber Security version 8.

So, ECS v8 is now merged with former ESET Cyber Security and former ESET Cyber Security Pro.

This new ECS v8 has firewall, but if clean-installed, the firewall is not enabled until you finish activation of the programme even if you already have a valid ECSPro licence.

That means, you have to access to the internet for the activation while firewall is dead.

The activation would probably only take one minute or less (depending on environment), but this is a very long one minute without the safety functions, specially the internet connection speed is extremely high these days and unwanted applications could accept unwanted incoming/outgoing connections... a lot.

When clean-installing the classic ECSPro with firewall, you didn't need to worry about it, because the firewall is enabled immediately after installation, before you go to the activation process.

So, here is my question: Is the ECS v8 activation design really safe or more risky than the classic  ECSPro?

For your information, I consider it a risk when some Apple's native applications (such as Music, I always block incoming/outgoing traffic) connect to the internet.

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Prior to installation of ESET CyberSecurity v8, you either have no firewall at all or a 3rd party or macOS firewall so the time between you download ECS v8 and its activation doesn't play any role I'd say. Moreover, in automatic mode all outbound communication is allowed and all inbound communication blocked. If I'm missing something, please elaborate more on what you are concerned about.

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V8 firewall will start filter connections that exist in macOS before firewall was running immediately after firewall starts to work. This is not doing by V6 firewall so from this point of view new firewall is more secure that older one.

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Enabling multiple firewalls on macOS can lead to several issues:

Network Conflicts: Different firewalls might have conflicting rules, leading to blocked connections or disrupted network traffic

Performance Degradation: Running multiple firewalls can consume more system resources, potentially slowing down your Mac.

Configuration Complexity: Managing multiple sets of firewall rules can be confusing and increase the risk of misconfiguration.

It’s generally recommended to use a single, well-configured firewall to avoid these problems.

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Thanks. But I think that timing of activation on new ESET Cyber Security (v8) is an issue.

I understand that when clean-installing ECS v8 (or upgrading from Pro v6 with valid licence), its firewall only enables after activation.

Yes, downloading the programme from the internet without any firewall is also scary, but I never do this. You could use any other firewall-enabled device to download it and then you could install to your Mac with USB or you could just use alternative firewall programme while downloading.

Over the years, I had to re-install ECSPro (with firewall) manually several times. But I always cut off the internet when installing it to my Mac until I finish setting up firewall and see it start working. Then I finally connect to the internet for activation and updating modules.

But now, it seems no way to skip the activation process on ECS v8 and then set up firewall... You have to connect to the internet to activate and then you can finally set up firewall... right?

If so, I would say, this is potentially risker than the old ECSPro v6.

The design of ECSPro v6. was better than ECS v8, because the ESET did not have to specify if their users are paying for firewall or not. But with ECS v8, ESET now has to find out if an user paid for firewall or not, so by default, they need to shout down firewall before activation finishes.

For future versions, how about enabling firewall on ECS v8 by default right after installation, but without activation, its firewall function goes sleep 24 or 48 hours after installation? So you have 24 or 48 hours to activate while firewall is working. I think this design would be much safer for users.
 

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If you are not seeing any unwanted interactions of both firewalls, you can use native macOS firewall with product one. But you must have it on your mind where you start troubleshooting any network problems, because something could be blocked by product firewall and other by system firewall.

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