File Writing Permissions not working properly

Hi, I posted about this a while back (soon after BWPS changed to iThemes) but I never found an answer and subsequently I have just been changing the file permissions for .htaccess and wp-config.php manually to make them more secure.

Basically I cannot get iThemes Security to change the file writing permissions via its settings. No effect whatsoever on the wp-config and although iThemes will change the .htaccess to 444 initially, toggling the permissions does not work, so if I need to edit .htaccess I have to manually change the permissions and then change them back.

I thought this might be due to another plugin but I just created a clean WordPress install and then installed iThemes Security and it is exactly the same.

This used to work perfectly in BWPS.

Not the end of the World of course but it does rather detract from my overall confidence in the plugin.

Hope you can help.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/better-wp-security/