Just a few thoughts, strictly for the OS developers

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For about 30 years now, I provide IT consulting services to some world's largest companies. I have seen products being adopted and removed from service once they were found more trouble than benefit. This includes both commercial and free software. Products that serve the user's needs continue to be used, whereas those that work against the user become retired.

OS is a great product! The fact that I prefer it to PFS and other routers should tell you a lot regardless of what you think of me personally. Up to you.

Long story short: if you want OS to continue to lead and be widely adopted, then you should change the UI of firewall rules.
Currently, I have some 500 rules in the WAN section. This is not a lot! Over my career, I've seen companies have 10s of 1000s of rules. But with slightly over 500 rules, the process of managing them in OS admin UI is becoming a pain point because they load very slowly. It takes a long while to initially load the list, and then it is very slow to scroll down. You should seriously consider splitting the display and management functions into 2 separate tabs, the management being the 1st, default one.

When I come to the WAN rule admin page, I do not come there to see the whole list. I could not care less about what is currently on the list, when I want to add a new rule. Only if I want to check whether a similar rule exists or not, which happens rather seldom, will I want to flip to the 2nd tab and do a search. And even then, I would rather search be on its own, separate tab.

Another viable option is to paginate the list to a number of items low by default, some 25-50, like you do on other pages. Dumping hundreds of FW rules on a user and having them wait is not something that can be welcomed.

Like I previously mentioned, you already have good examples of UI solutions elsewhere in OS. All you should do is transplant them to the areas that cause pain for the user. This should not be too hard to do.

This may have already been done in your new versions, but I have no way of knowing about that because I refuse to use 24+ due to the redesign of the main dashboard that does not fit my needs.

Cheers!