Antimalware, firewall, and other security programs for Windows XP working in 2023 and hopefully beyond

[AstroSkipper]

19 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

When I first said that I'd installed Panda Dome 21, and you mentioned HTTPSProxy as being necessary for it to connect on XP, the first thing I did was to look at the proxy console.
There were no entries for Panda servers at all, and the program seemed to be working perfectly, connected to my account and activated.
How it worked without it, I have no idea. The Panda Dome proxy settings were still on their defaults, whatever they are.
I have the proxy set to work system-wide, but it would surely have recorded something in the console if Panda Dome had used it.
I have never emptied my Certs folder, or updated cacert.pem, and I've been using the proxy now for several years, as you know!
It seems to still be working perfectly.
What would be the symptoms if it wasn't because I hadn't done all that.
My Certs folder has 4,145 files in it BTW!

Here is a quotation from my main article:

On 2/20/2022 at 4:09 PM, AstroSkipper said:

6.5. Maintenance of ProxHTTPSProxy and HTTPSProxy for future use:

We have to carry out a bit of maintenance to ensure that these proxies are working properly. First of all, the system's root certificates should be updated every three months. If you have not done that yet, you can use one of the root certificate updater in the section 11.2.4. Downloads related to Root Certificate Updates where different online and offline versions can be downloaded from. Then you should check following list:

• Regular update of the file 'cacert.pem'.
• Maintenance and check of the file config.ini according to your needs.
• Checking the validity of the proxy's root certificate.
• Deleting of all certificates in the folder 'Certs' if the proxy isn't working properly.
• Checking the state of the Proxy in IE or in your system.

And I should add that it is very important to delete all dummy cerificates in the Certs folder when the cacert.pem file has been updated. And you won't lose anything. The dummy certificates will be generated the next time when connecting to servers. BTW, you are using the proxy system-wide. That was what I asked you in an earlier post. I personally do not.  

[Dave-H]

13 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

I can't get it to ACTIVATE on 100% Native XP+POS.  The ACTIVATION may be where HTTPSProxy becomes a must.

I'm pretty sure that my Panda Dome 21 did activate without using HTTPSProxy, even though I have it installed, and it accessed my Panda account fine too.
Version 22 again activated fine as a free version, and updated fine when my Essentials activation code was put in.
The only thing it would not do until I put the proxy settings into it was access my Panda account, which 21 had done fine apparently without the proxy.

[AstroSkipper]

18 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

I can report that Panda Dome 21 does indeed install on a 100% Native XP+POSReady2009 (ie, *no* HTTPSProxy, *no* ProxHTTPSProxy, *no* Proxomitron, *no* Cert Updates of any kind, IE never even launched until the Panda installer launched it!).

You must have misunderstood something. Panda only needs ProxHTTPSProxy to activate the Panda account. After that, the proxy settings in Panda can be deleted and the proxy closed.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

Okay, that explains it.

I *never* use a REAL email address for these types of things.  *NEVER*

v23 would CONNECT (through HTTPSProxy) but then fail account creation saying the email account was unreachable.

I tried EIGHT different "temporary email" services, Panda could not "reach" any of them.

ie, has them all blacklisted, not uncommon [MSFN accounts can also not be created with temp emails, something that *ticks me off* but "is what it is"]).

v21 would not even try to connect to the "temporary email" services [direct, no proxy] (which is inline with your statements).

Just the way I do things, Panda will *NOT* get my email address.  But I could create a "throwaway" Gmail and activate that way if I opt to keep Panda.

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, Dave-H said:

... which 21 had done fine apparently without the proxy

when you were running the proxy system-wide in the background. Right? On both of my Windows XP partitions, Panda Dome was definitively not able to activate the account without ProxHTTPSProxy. Neither for version 21.01.00, 20.02.01 nor 18.07.04.

[Dave-H]

1 minute ago, AstroSkipper said:

when you were running the proxy system-wide in the background. Right? On both of my Windows XP partitions, Panda Dome was definitively not able to activate the account without ProxHTTPSProxy. Neither for version 21.01.00, 20.02.01 nor 18.07.04.

That's right, but does Panda Dome therefore use the proxy even if its proxy settings aren't set up to do so?
And there were no Panda server accesses recorded in the proxy console.

[AstroSkipper]

8 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

That's right, but does Panda Dome therefore use the proxy even if its proxy settings aren't set up to do so?
And there were no Panda server accesses recorded in the proxy console.

It seems so. I've never had a scenario like this before. But one thing is clear. Panda must have used the proxy connection. No chance without it.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

Agreed.  The earlier versions of Panda seem to use INTERNET EXPLORER's proxy settings (which you proxified when setting the proxy to run "system-wide").

[NotHereToPlayGames]

3 minutes ago, AstroSkipper said:

I've never had a scenario like this before.

I have.  Before browser "forks" came along, browser "shells" were common (Sleipnir, MyIE2, Maxthon, SlimBrowser, GreenBrowser).

They all used the IE "engine" and "iexplore.exe" could be prevented from launch or network access by way of firewall rules but the "shell" would still have access through IE's "proxy".

The earlier versions of Panda are basically acting as a "shell" to the Internet Explorer (and/or Edge) "engine".

The question that this begs is can Panda be activated on systems where firewall rules wholly and completely block IE/Edge (not only the browser but the "engine" also)?

ie, did the activation throw a firewall nag?  or did it just "connect" because there was already a firewall rule "allowing" IE/Edge?

[Dave-H]

19 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Agreed.  The earlier versions of Panda seem to use INTERNET EXPLORER's proxy settings (which you proxified when setting the proxy to run "system-wide").

That would certainly make sense and explain things.
Version 21 presumably uses IE's proxy settings, and version 22 (and presumably 23) do not, which is why I had to manually set version 22 to use the proxy to get access to my account in its interface.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

And without veering too far into OT Land, the install of v23 on XP, which technically was only a stub to download and install v22, that stub downloaded four or five PNG files in addition to the EXE installer.  Only the PNG files/connections were logged in HTTPSProxy, not the EXE.

I find this interesting because AstroSkipper's installation (one of two partitions) is missing the wallpaper images (which I have not looked into but I have to wonder if they are PNGs).  ie, the PNGs came from a server that needed to pass certificate chains but the EXE did not (ie, the offline/stub did originate from an HTTP address, not an HTTPS).  ie, Panda's installation communications have http connections to pull in an EXE but have https connections to pull in PNGs.

I would claim that Panda is doing that because it makes it VERY EASY to log every IP Address that requested the EXE.  Server logs for the website (https) and PNGs (https) would be a MILE LONG.  Server logs for the EXE would only fill one 8-1/2 x 11 per day or week.

Edited 45 minutes ago by NotHereToPlayGames