PeerGuardian 2: beta is nigh
p2pnet.net News:- PeerGuardian is little. But it’s Big.
It’s a unique, and free, software firewall designed to keep the likes of the RIAA, MPAA and their scalp-hunters from cruising around in your computer without your knowledge or permission .
It achieves this by blocking their IP ranges and, used with decontamination applications such as Patrick Kolla’s equally free and equally excellent Spybot – Search & Destroy, is a perfect weapon in your arsenal of protection technologies.
“PeerGuardian was only really intended for friends and people who knew me: it was just a project based on my reaction to the RIAA’s persistent attacks on peer-2-peer,” its creator Tim Leonard told me many moons ago.
“When the RIAA screwed AudioGalaxy up, probably the most cooperative p2p network there ever was, I decided I had to at least try to do something in return and, well, you know the rest.”
Since then, PG has become one of the most respected online prophylactics (no offence intended ; )
Now, based on Leonard’s original, the PG2 beta is only a week or so away, Methlabs’ Joseph Farthing told p2pnet.
He gave us a copy of what’ll probably be the last private beta before a public beta release and reporting wholly from the perspective of someone who’s a well-known technical incompetent, I’m here to tell you it all looks good – simple, clean and idiot-proof.
For example, after the Welcome Wizard, the first thing you see when you fire it up is this:
And then …
And it only takes about five seconds.
PG2 blocks all protocol levels, uses 0% CPU, and has 100% accuracy, promise the developers – with 100% accuracy.
It also features real time logging, a full automatic update service and a plugin system – “Ever thought of a statistics graph of the things you block?” – asks the Methlabs site.
If you don’t want to wait for the beta, you can download a Lite version here.
Say no more : )
Cheers!
Jon
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
February 17th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
cool! excellent! methlab ROCKS!
February 17th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
Is this gonna be ProtoWall?
I used to use PeerGuardian… but then I heard protowall was better… and used less resources to run…
But if this is gonna be better, I’ll switch back.
February 17th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
why bother if u have emule, just bag the blacklists using the blutack manager and import them into the ip blocker built in
February 17th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
I used to host a p2p hub on Direct Connect, with the thousands of hits per hour my hub got, the old peerguardian would lag the crap out of my hub and anything else I dare run on the hubpc…..
Has anyone tried this new version in a 500-10,000 average inbound connection environment?.. If so what kind of lag did your users notice if any while it was running and what kind of cpu/memory usage have you noticed on the pc side?….
I’m out of the hosting days and I dont download anything I shouldn’t be so for me I really dont need this – except to block ads etc which is nice…. I’ll try this new one later tonight when I get home but I’m just curious about how everyone’s doing with it anyway.
_-Jile-_
February 17th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
I’ve never tried ProtoWall, but this is an excellent app.
Guess you’ll have to try it and see – it won’t cost you anything ; )
Cheers!
February 17th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
It seems that PG2 is taking a lot of the ideas – such as kernel-level blocking to reduce resource load – from Protowall. Since Protowall came out, PG has taken a back seat due to its resource-hogging nature. Maybe this will turn the tides.
February 17th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
We don’t compare protowall to peerguardian for the reason of not flaming or anything. If I am correct, Protowall only blocks TCP like PG1.X does…but PG2 and PG2Lite blocks UDP, and all protocols. So this would make PG2 better if I am correct about Protowall only blocking TCP. Also, PG2 will use less resources because it uses pretty much no resources. Its loads instantly. It also is very easy to install and PG2 will contain a plugin system. The first beta will not have the plugin system for a few reasons.
No flame war intended to start…just stating facts about are program and there program. The idea is, both protect you. Thats all that matters. But if the TCP and UDP fact I stated is correct…than PG2 will secure more.
February 17th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Because you’re only protected when you are using Emule and only protected on the ports and protowall that emule runs on. The RIAA will have the ability to walk right through on another port or another protocal or when Emule is not running. Thats the main reason why.
February 17th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
That was a serious problem with PG1.X ,but no longer in PG2. PG2 is written in C++ while PG1.X was made in Visaul Basic. No more of that junk.
February 17th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
Neither is really a copy of the other. Bluetack and Methlabs were affiliated with each other at the start and pretty much started at the same time. PG2 is no a resource hog at all. I am currently running PG2Lite at 400kb Resource Usage and 0% CPU. PG2 may use slightly more resources. I would bet about 600kb Resource Usage Maximum. I don’t even notice thats it on.
February 17th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
I’m running at zero too.
Cheers!
February 17th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I’ve been using pg2 lite for awhile now, runs on pretty much nothing. But it is incredibly lite, has no gui interface, so you don’t really know what is going on. I used protowall for about a year, but there are many complications to it. The loading of the driver is a bit complicated, and it can slow down your internet connection. There are detailed walkthroughs for installation and patches for network cards, but just seems like too much work. Hopefully pg2 is nice and straight-forward without many bugs. From the screenshots of pg2, it looks very similiar to protowall. So it will just be a matter of preference I guess.
Keep up the good posts Jile
TOO
February 18th, 2005 at 12:22 am
Protowall blocks all NDIS protocols. These include: IP/ICMP/TCP/UDP/HOPOPTS/IGMP/GGP/IPV4/ST/EGP/PIGP/RCCMON/NVPII/PUP/ARGUS/
EMCON/CHAOS/MUX/MEAS/HMP/PRM/IDP/TRUNK1/TRUNK2/LEAF1/LEAF2/RDP/IRTP/TP/
BLT/NSP/INP/SEP/3PC/IDPR/XTP/DDP/CMTP/TPXX/IL/IPV6/SDRP/ROUTING/FRAGMENT/
IDRP/RSVP/GRE/MHRP/BHA/ESP/AH/INLSP/SWIPE/NHRP/MOBILE/TLSP/SKIP/ICMPV6/NONE
/DSTOPTS/AHIP/CFTP/HELLO/SATEXPAK/KRYPTOLAN/RVD/IPPC/ADFS/SATMON/VISA/IPCV/
CPNX/CPHB/WSN/PVP/BRSATMON/ND/WBMON/WBEXPAK/EON/VMTP/SVMTP/VINES/TTP/IGP/DGP/
TCF/IGRP/OSPFIGP/SRPC/LARP/MTP/AX25/IPEIP/MICP/SCCSP/ETHERIP/ENCAP/APES/GMTP/IPCOMP/
PIM/PGM/
February 18th, 2005 at 1:36 am
Protowall blocks all protocols because it’s basically a blocklisted firewall. PG1 waits for the packets 2 enter, then blocks. Protowall blocks them before they “enter.”
February 18th, 2005 at 1:38 am
Straight from Methlabs:
Protowall is a lightweight program that runs in the background, taking up little CPU and memory, while blocking thousands of bad IP addresses. In Protowall, all the work is done by the driver that filters each packet, extracts the IP header and then compares the address with the ones in the table, then either discards or permits the packet to pass. The GUI is essentially a “driver instructor” that communicates to the driver the IP list to check against. The GUI also receives notifications from the driver when a packet arrives and when actions are performed with a packet. Protowall Blocks both inbound and outbound packets. Protowall blocks incoming packets from Internet addresses that are on the Bluetack Blacklists. This is handled by another program called the Blocklist Manager. This program finds and retrieves lists of bad IP addresses. They are sorted (overlapping resolved) and then converted to various formats such as Protowall, PeerGuardian & other common applications and firewalls.
February 19th, 2005 at 2:41 am
Will this work without interference if a person is using a conventional software firewall, like McAfee and others? Is there any chance of these two conflicting in any way. Sorry to sound ignorant. Thanx.
February 19th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
no… PeerGuardian 2 does not use a conventional driver as Protowall does, but uses a simple packet filter in the kernel.
this means that conflict with firewalls (except maybe really simple/old ones) are going to be non-existant.
don’t forget PeerGuardain 2 will be open source, so you can take a look at the code when its out!
February 19th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
PG2 blocks all protocols used by the Windows kernel… which is a simple way of saying all those protocols!
February 20th, 2005 at 7:09 am
Without a good blocklist being ran, peerguardian or other programs like it are pointless.
Here is the best blocklist manager I’ve found:
http://www.bluetack.co.uk/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=50
February 20th, 2005 at 7:10 am
One of these days I’m going to get my account password so I can post as me and stop having to manually add (and alot of times forget to add hence this reply to my post) my nic…. lol
_-Jile-_
February 20th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Hi _-Jile-_
I know – it happens to a few people and I have no idea why. However, p2pnet will be going Drupal soon and this will be a thing of the past. In the meanwhile, however, I’ll have another shot at finding out what’s wrong.
Cheers!
February 22nd, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Im currently blocking 70+% of the internet with protoWall, and have yet to receive any letters or warnings yet…
May 25th, 2005 at 3:28 pm