Articles

Firewalls and Antiviruses

The most of traders use special programs to protect their PCs. Unfortunately, these programs don't only protect computers against intrusions, viruses and Trojans, but also consume a significant amount of resources. This relates to network traffic, first of all, which is wholly controlled by various intelligent antiviruses and firewalls.

The reason for writing this article was that traders complained of slowed MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal when working with Outpost Firewall. We decided to make our own research using Kaspersky Antivirus 6.0 and Outpost Firewall Pro 4.0:

Testing of Various Configurations

Since the MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal creates connections to the trade server, the protecting programs monitor network traffic trying to find some "injurious acts" in it. Depending on the amount of characteristics to be checked, network operations may be slowed seriously. The situation is dramatized by the fact that MetaTrader 4 uses standard port 443 (HTTPS, SSL), through which it exchange enciphered data via its protocol.

Having tested various configurations of Outpost Firewall and Kaspersky Antivirus in many different ways, we discovered that Outpost Firewall slowed all MetaTrader's network connections by extra 3 seconds. If the terminal completes connection to server on a "blank" (free of firewalls or antiviruses) PC within one second, the connection time increases up to four seconds at enabled Outpost Firewall. Kaspersky Antivirus does not influence the connecting time in any way.

Conclusions

The conclusions are not encouraging:

• the use of Outpost Firewall configured by default obviously results in the terminal operating delays;
• the trading speed slows disastrously since trades often need opening additional network connections.

In all appearances, Outpost Firewall tries to decode the transferred data unsuccessfully, taking them as normal HTTPS traffic. However, a delay of 3 (Three) seconds on the simplest connection means that the firewall obviously "act in excess of its rights" and harms to traders!

A Solution of the Problem

In testing, we found out that it was sufficient to add MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal to the trusted list and set up a special rule for it:

Enable all outgoing TCP connections and ignore component control.

This results in that the firewall does not control the terminal operation too strictly and there are no losses in connecting speed anymore. The terminal works quickly again!