PeerBlock 1.1.0 Release 518

4.7 out of 5 stars 4.7 (107 votes)

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Windows 7/2000/Vista/XP / Open Source / 14,491 downloads

PeerBlock is a new version of the popular Peer Guardian 2 software. It blocks "known bad" computers from accessing yours, for example governments, corporate entities, and those flagged for anti-p2p activities. It maintains the functionality of the original Peer Guardian 2 program, but includes fixes for various issues that remain unaddressed in the latest (~2 year old) version of PG2.

  • Homepage

    PeerBlock

  • Uninstaller

    Yes

  • Latest Changes

    - Signed Driver - We now have a signed driver! If you're using a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or 7, you will no longer need to test-sign the driver, or hit F8 during boot, or anything else. It should all just work

    - IBlocklist Lists - We've updated our standard list URLs to point at iblocklist.com lists instead of the original peerguardian.sourceforge.net ones. They are faster, and are much more reliable - no more "Error contacting URL" messages! We will also upgra

    - Installer Rewrite - Our newest Dev Team member, XhmikosR, has pretty much completely rewritten the installer from scratch. Most importantly, it should actually work now, even during uninstall! (Not that you'll ever want to uninstall PeerBlock, of course

    - Updated List Manager - Reworked this window a bit, to make it easier to get back to the lists originally presented to you in the Startup Wizard

    - Allowed Connections Displayed - By default, the "Show allowed connections" option will be disabled. (This is due to performance reasons, as the tool will consume considerably more CPU if displaying of allowed connections is enabled.) We are still loggin

    - Save Settings - We've added a "Save" button to the settings panel, so that you can be sure your settings updates have been saved

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Reviews of PeerBlock

  1. 5 out of 5 stars
    Uriel

    Reviewing 1.1.0 Release 518 (Nov 23, 2010)

    The only thing missing is a Linux compatible version.

  2. 5 out of 5 stars
    tannenwheel

    Reviewing 1.0 r320 Beta (Mar 10, 2010)

    i have unchecked "update at startup" and checked "auto-update every (1) days" (which is applied to both list and program). i don't notice any delays. at least i never get to see that little update-window, that it would display when updating during startup. it's been truly a "set and forget" program in my experience.

  3. 2 out of 5 stars
    emanresU deriseD

    Reviewing 1.0+ r277 Beta (Feb 16, 2010)

    Yeah some PG builds were horrible, but I managed to find one that is very stable for me (it's reported in the About box as "PeerGuardian 2.0 Beta 6b (09/18/2005)").

  4. 4 out of 5 stars
    been

    Reviewing 1.0+ r277 Beta (Feb 16, 2010)

    @emanresU deriseD
    Clicking off the 'Update Peerblock' option (the program update) greatly decreases loading time. I agree that a crash recovery facility should have been included although, unlike with PG2, I've yet to experience a Peerblock crash.

  5. 2 out of 5 stars
    emanresU deriseD

    Reviewing 1.0 (Nov 24, 2009)

    There's no way I'm using this instead of PeerGuardian 2.0 6b. That version of PG runs perfectly for me, and the only annoyance with it is the "Generating List Cache..." delay. (I do understand the reason for that delay.)

    PeerBlock not only has the same delay, it forces it upon me TWO times each time I start it, for no apparent reason. Sometimes it displays the "Generating List Cache..." notice even when I KNOW there have been no list updates.

    Also, each time I run PeerBlock, it displays a few "Allowed" connections, and then issues a notice that it won't display any more of them to save resources. Well, uhh, I have it configured not to display ANY "Allowed" connections, so why display them at all?

    The list editor has a GUI bug (at least when used at 120 DPI). Other, minor GUI bugs from PG (in the settings dialog) are still there.

    There is no (native) way to remove the PB driver if the application or system crashes, as there is with PG. Also, PG removes its driver automatically when it's closed. PB does not.

    So in short, from where I sit, there's nothing at all better about PB, and many things worse.

    BTW, I am running the latest STABLE version of PB. Well, I was, before I uninstalled it...

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Discuss PeerBlock

  1. Aug 5, 2009 - 10:55 AM
    MarkSide

    Hi all, this is the lead developer of PeerBlock.

    Just wanted to warn you that this version of our program, PeerBlock 0.9.1 (r71), has a bug in it that can cause a rare Windows crash during shutdown/reboot. We've released a fix for this problem last night (PeerBlock 0.9.2 (r86), just now noticed that this site is linking directly to the old version. I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO UPGRADE to the fixed version, and apologize for the inconvenience.

    (For what it's worth the bug looks to be a day-one bug in the old PeerGuardian code, but for some reason our recent release included some changes that made the problem happen more frequently. Frequently being a relative term, we only have three reports of this problem being hit after 1000+ downloads...)

    Also, as far as the "Peerblock is unable to load the packet filtering driver" error goes, this is caused by Windows Vista and Win7 requiring a "signed driver" before it will let the driver be loaded. We have some workarounds listed on our website that will help you bypass this checking and get PeerBlock working on your machine: (http://www.peerblock.com...ver-signing-workarounds). We are also collecting donations for a "signed driver fund", to enable us to purchase the code-signing certificate we need to generate a true signed driver so we won't need any of these workarounds - if you're in a position to help out, please consider contributing a few dollars: (http://devblog.peerblock...want-signed-driver.html).

    Thanks!

    --- Mark ---

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