Last Updated on November 15, 2019 by Mathew Diekhake

GlassWire, the immensely underappreciated network monitoring tool, has just been updated to version 2.0. The new release comes with the inclusion of VirusTotal, high DPI support, can now detect “evil twin” attacks, brings data usage improvements, has firewall improvements as well as new firewall profiles, plus some extra security analysis as well.

Part of the reason for GlassWire not being used by as many people as it might have been could come down to it only being advertised as a bit of firewall software from its own official website, when in fact, it can do a lot more. And many of those who are using the tool do use it for other things, such as checking out what programs you might have installed on your computer that are doing things they shouldn’t be. But make no mistake: out of the thousands of things you could choose, GlassWire is one of the tools some of you will find worthy of taking up space on your computer, and version 2.0 is a considerable improvement over the first.

GlassWire 2.0 launched yesterday from the official website, and it’s available to be downloaded already from the big green button on the site’s homepage. Here’s what you can expect to find inside.

“Evil Twin” Network Attack Alerts

GlassWire 2.0 will stop the “evil twin” WiFi network attacks that may occur on your computer. Evil twin attacks have been around for a few years now, but they’ve become more common in recent times and are now common enough for GlassWire to feel as though they needed to do something about it. It’ll likely get more common in the future as well, because after taking a look around the internet, I can see that there are videos teaching people how to not only set up an “evil twin” attack but orchestrate the social engineering requirements of the attack as well. Basically, there’s a new trick that evil hackers have come up with where they create a WiFi account that appears very similar to the account that you’re already using, hence the name “evil twin.” There are hackers out there doing the usual social engineering tricks to obtain the information they need of your real WiFi address, and then they mimic it and set you up for a potential disaster should you ever get fooled and connect to the wrong account. Well, now with GlassWire 2.0, you’ll get an alert if you ever connect to a different account. It can’t do anything to prevent the hackers from getting you on their network, but it’ll help in getting you off that bad network as soon as possible and hopefully before any damage is done.

Automatic VirusTotal Uploads

If you haven’t yet checked out what VirusTotal is all about, you can read up on our guide we posted yesterday about what VirusTotal is and how it can be used. One of the features that VirusToat has is a button where people can upload any files they want that they’ve found on the web. Heaps of people take the time to do this, and many don’t. The ones who choose not to go to the effort aren’t necessarily doing it because they don’t want to but because they don’t have the time or just can’t be bothered going to the trouble of getting the files uploaded manually. Now you don’t have to strain your brain or fingertips of the burden of uploading manually because GlassWire 2.0 will automatically upload the files and run the VirusTotal scan for you, giving you the full analysis of the results as well. I’m still not considering this part of VirusTotal, where you get results for files already downloaded on your hard drive, as essential for everyone to have because your antivirus is going to scan and pick these things up anyway. It’s also going to do it on a regular basis if you’re using an up to date operating system such as Windows 10 because that’s what it’s automatically set to do. Still, it’s handy if you’ve picked up some adware and you aren’t familiar with what it looks like. That way it can get off your computer even quicker.

High DPI SUpport

One of the features most avid gamers will be familiar with is the DPI of a display. If you have a monitor that has a DPI too low then it can skip pixels and the gaming experience just isn’t as good. There’s also another problem that software that doesn’t support high DPI monitors possess, and that’s the inability to adjust to different sizes for different resolutions.

Now with high DPI support, GlassWire 2.0 will automatically be able to change what you see to support the resolution that you’re asking for it to pull. High pixel density displays are now common when shopping for a new computer so all good software should offer support for this soon if they don’t already.

Firewall Improvements and Profiles

GlassWire 2.0 now has its firewall working with better compatibility with the default Windows firewall. All GlassWire rules are now synced with the Windows firewall. GlassWire now remembers your firewall settings so it can change back to them if you’ve experienced an unexpected change recently.

What’s more, GlassWire now comes with firewall profiles. These profiles are going to be useful if you want to save your preferences. For example, if you want it to ask you if you want to connect when on public WiFi then you can now have a profile saved for that option. To create one, open up your GlassWire user interface click on the “Firewalls” tab and then the “Firewall profiles” down arrow.

Additional GlassWire 2.0 Features

There’s also still a bunch of new stuff that you’ll find in the new version that hasn’t even been listed in the official GlassWire launch notes. You’ll no doubt notice the completely new user interface when you open it up, it has support for multiple monitors so you can move your GlassWire from one monitor over to the other, the option to switch network scanning on and off, a 7 day paid trial for free users, a new settings window and more.

While you might not have yet heard about GlassWire yet unless you’re really into your software, they have been given great reviews from many of the big name website reviews out there such as PC World. It’s not a household name yet, but it’s still very well known software and software that you can trust.

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