webwasher and xfree

[Harold L Hunt II]

Kai,

Let me describe how the X Window System works for you and see if you can 
figure out why webwasher might cause a problem:

1) All communications between an X Client and the X Server (display) go 
through TCP/IP, regardless of whether they are on the same computer or 
on remote computers.


Okay, that sums up how the X Window System works.

Now, here is a tip about how programs like webwasher work: they 
intercept *every* TCP/IP packet on your system, usually by replacing the 
Windows network layer with their own code.

We have had numerous complaints of poor performance with various 
VPN/firewall software (search the mailing list archives for details), 
which almost all go away when the VPN/firewall software is removed. 
Unfortunately, some of those programs (webwasher does not appear to be 
one of them) leave their DLLs in place when they are uninstalled, so the 
performance problem persists.

I can't do much of anything to help you.  The real problem here is that 
100 or more independent vendors out there got the idea that there was 
money to be made in providing firewall/filtering software for Windows. 
Probably 99% of these vendors are not competent enough or large enough 
to produce a high-performance firewall/filter.  I doubt that most of 
them even have the resources to load test their code.  Thus, must of 
these packages are crap and shouldn't be used.  So, you should probably 
read some review of firewall/filter software and buy a new product from 
a large reputable vendor.  It would also be helpful if someone on this 
list was able to recommend a product that was known to work well with 
Cygwin/XFree86.


This sort of problem is also common to another breed of software: virus 
protection software.  Certain versions of McAffe virus protection 
software cause the compilation of Cygwin/XFree86 to jump from under an 
hour to over four hours, while Norton Antivirus causes only a 5% 
increase in compile time.  It all comes down to how careful and thorough 
the software authors are in writing and testing their code.


I hope that helps,

Harold

Kai wrote:
> Hi there...
> I am using cygwin and XFree on a win xp machine. I really am enjoying it 
> normally. But the moment I start the webfiltering programm webwasher, 
> everything under X runs really slowly, which is quite unnerving, because 
> especially if I´m online (the moment the webwasher comes useful) I use 
> X-forwarding to access a remote machine. It has nothing got to do with 
> my computer, because all other windows-processes keep up working fine 
> and there is also enough memory and power left. As webwasher works as a 
> proxy-engine, it might be, that X and the webwasher are using some same 
> port. I already changed the port webwasher is using from 8080 to 80, but 
> that did not work, so my idea might or better seems to be wrong.
> 
> Has anybody got any suggestions, what I could do?
> 
> Thanks a lot (, I am bloody stupid regarding X,)
> Kai.
> 
> P.S.:  I tried twm and fvwm as windowmanagers which did not change the 
> slow X ...