[aeon]

hi i want to ask after you install sapphire, monster or digital anarchy etc you get the right installation key and u make it work. you are finally happy you got new working plugins for free.

you probably know that many of those plugins are sending data over internet by it self using DCOM windows service. normally you cant see those plugins are connecting sending data about itself and the OS system ID etc to the owners of that plugin or software.

I was curious i just started using all this After Effects and i have little thing on my desktop where i can see internet traffic(upload and download). i found that when I installed AF and photoshop maya etc even if I didnt register this applications and plugins there is increase in internet traffic.
i tried to use firewall win 7, tried to find out what application or plugin use internet connection then i started to just block plugin by plugin AF etc, inbound and outbound it didnt change anything when internet in idle still few kbit every 1 to 5min was sent and some received. so i knew something is sending something but i couldnt find what and how to block it. i found that there is service called Dcom windows service which allow companies like Adobe and any other genuine company to use windows services to connect their application(from you pc) to their servers to get data about their plugins or software so i tried to kill this windows service and it isnt possible. even as an administrator u cant stop it and even if you managed to kill this service you wont be able to use windows anymore.



if you want a little test type in windows search box cmd start it as administrator then type netstat -ab

and see how many of your plugins are listening on different open ports( just for those plugins) and how many of your plugins failed to register. and i wonder if thats problem or not ?


did you knew about it?

did you do anything about it ?

[nunya beezwax]

hello mr nooberson maybe I can help, the easy way to bypass that is dont go online have a dedicated internet machine,otherwise edit the hostfile or easier still block with firewall.make sure you put item on the list of firewall exceptions then uncheck the box.Sounds crazy that you should un firewall then refirewall to make it work but Ive heard thats whats needed for it to work. Its called windows for a reason - its open and transparent to anyone passing by

[squ]

We were all new once, and most I'd say have at one time or another had the same question. One solution, apart from not connection to the net, is a good and easy to configure firewall.

The one I have come to is eset smart security, anti virus is there too, and doesn't give false positives all over the place.

It's dead easy, open the ui, click on setup, advanced personal firewall setup. You will then see filtering mode, and choose interactive filtering. At every new action it will ask you for permission to connect to the net. You can allow or deny, it'll tell you what app is asking to be connected to where, if you're unsure about something, you can tell it to allow or deny temporarily, then next time it'll ask again.

I've tried many, this for me is the best and simplest.

[aeon]

firewall i mean the one included in windows 7 wont stop the plugin. if you block the port windows will assign another one for the application cuz the application is genuine and some plugins use windows licencing service mean they dont connect to the internet directly.

i tried to use zonealarm.

and it reported to me that few plugins and AF and FlexNet tried to send info over internet it asked me if I want to block it, there was two options example for Genarts block server and or block internet, when i blocked both Genarts; sapphire and monsters stopped work. when i blocked internet only plugin still didnt work,i think no software will stop this applications from connecting to the internet. and the only working option is not to have internet at all on the machine u have AF.

i checked genarts local server status on http://localhost:5054 there is also system name, mac adress and ip address just everyting Genarts need to find out who didnt pay for their plugin. hehehe and when u type netstat -ab

example rlm says port tcp 445, 2701 5054 etc listening " can not obtain ownership information ".

[yukon_28]

Edit file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, add a few lines to it,

127.0.0.1 cgpersia.com
127.0.0.1 forum.cgpersia.com

of course change cgpersia addresses to ones that you want to block, like genarts.com etc.

[vapo]

Try Outpost Firewall, commercial:

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[squ]

same sort of thing as eset/nod vapo. Thing is that agnitum is more expensive than eset, and in my case the support was non existent. I used agnitum before eset.

[Bgood]

i use Comodo firewall. Then when it give me the IP that pulgin is looking, i add the lines to the host file.