1) the entries (over 7,000) are not updated as often as needed, and
many of the ones that do exist are no longer valid, thus creating a
huge amount of invalid Registry entries. Which Microsoft NEVER
intended that so many entries would exist there in the Registry.

2) Windows Vista does NOT allow any new ActiveX installs or
any to run without first prompting the user. (XP doesn't do that)

When Spywareblaster first came out it was and still is a good program
however as time has progressed the type of malicious installs no
longer simply use ActiveX as a method of infection.

Mike Burgess
Microsoft MVP - Internet Security

One of the very common complaints about outbound firewalls are warning messages that are either incomprehensible, overly frequent, or don't give the average user enough information to make an informed decision. Frequently, they'll simply report a connection attempt to or from an IP address with little or no additional information. I also commonly see people asking about warnings that arise from totally legitimate processes on their machine accessing the internet for things like software updates or the current time and date. With too many errors, indecipherable messages or false positives, people tend to ignore the warnings after a while, rendering the outbound firewall ineffective.

The malware could, in fact, include additional code to actually reconfigure your firewall to let the malware's communication through. It's been done.

I also feel that the Windows Firewall, behind a Hardware Firewall, is sufficient for the average or inexperienced user and in fact, use this setup on our other household computer.




Is an outbound firewall needed?