Comodo love/hate?

I've never met an outbound firewall/HIPS program that didn't bombard you with questions initially. It's an oxymoron to expect one not to. They're not psychic. They have to ask you how you want to react to each situation so that a rule can be set. Once these rules are set... no more popups. I never see them anymore. So I think the critique about it being too loud is widely exaggerated.

Put me in the "love it" category. I've been using it for years and see no reason to change. I have 1GB of ram of my system and it causes no noticeable slowdown. In fact as I look at the good ol' Process Explorer right now I see cpf.exe using a mere 5,536 KB, and cmdagent 1,832 KB. This is with pretty much full blown settings, besides 1 thing in the advanced firewall settings. So I don't see how this could be construed as anything other than light.

I personally don't know anything about their CEO or his personality. I only know that he makes a great free firewall. I do not yet rely on their AV though. I only install the firewall/HIPS, not the entire suite. But I do not doubt that eventually their AV will rival all-comers. They're just playing catch up as of now.

But ultimately the only way to know for sure is to try multiple products yourself and see what works best with your setup. It's chemistry. As you can see some people describe it as "bloated", and being impossible to uninstall. That has not held true for me, and it's almost certainly due to them having things on their setup that don't play well with it. I had that problem with a few highly touted products in the past. I don't hate on their product for it because I realize this reality.

 

It's because you didn't tried others...

Check Online Armor for example...

 

That's pretty presumptuous. I have indeed tried it (both the free & paid versions), and the latter, like all others has to inquire about how you want to handle a situation before a rule can be set, if you choose to fine-tune your settings. I see no way around this other than to adopt a default allow policy, which renders such programs pretty moot. Comodo does certainly have more popups "initially". That's the give/take involved if you want something capable of stopping anything you throw at it. But again, after setting the rule and ticking the "don't ask me again" box, or whatever it says (been so long I forget)... that's that. I personally don't see the big deal about it.

Also the OP asked for a "free" product, and for reasons stated in another active post here I wouldn't recommend the free version of OA. The paid version is very nice though.

 

You don't know how to use OA, and please, tell why the free version of OA is not recommended?

Because on another the thread we still miss the explanation!

Just to clarify, I don't use OA or Comodo Firewall...

 

Yes, polarizing stuff. The answers to why are all over the web.
I'm sure you were only curious, but this thread has WWIII written all over it. The restraint is refreshing.

People define "light" in different ways.
I understand RAM usage is important to you, but it usually isn't for users on hardware a few years old or newer. CPU and I/O are some other measuring sticks.

I agree that their FW is light, and by every definition I can think of. Even the suite, when there's no scan running.

 

Indeed it does. Actually I am encouraged by how long people have been just sharing opinions without major 'fanboy' type attitudes showing up.

@luciddream

You have brought up some very good points, and in a diplomatic fashion. You are correct, although you only hinted at it. Any firewall can be suitable, mostly. I believe it is the UI that makes or breaks a firewall for a user, not how strong or weak it is percieved. The ability to get configure it is the primary point of strength or weakness. The ability to withstand the onslaught of pop-ups is, to me, directly related to how the UI presents those and how the UI is designed to create rules to keep the pop-up from coming again.

To me, Comodo is excessively chatty. Quite maddening actually. To you, not so much. It is a fine example of how each of us view things so differently. You even hint that uninstall issues could be related to system configuration, which is quite likely. We differ though in that if other programs can handle those problems, Comodo should as well. It of course doesn't always work out that way, but one would expect it to.

Nice thread here. Good to see lots of angles and viewpoints being shared without a lot of attitude as well.

Sul.

 

I've always liked Comodo Internet Security (previously Comodo Firewall).

As for their other products, I have mixed feelings. Those haven't matured enough imo.

 

I have to agree about the UI. The interface went from bad to worse in my opinion. However, the latest release has gotten much quieter in terms of popups. With the use of their sandbox or policy limiter, it has achieved something they never had in terms of user friendliness. Their white list must continue to grow for it to be effective in this light.

Just my .02cents
Ice

 

Right... I've only been using outbound firewalls practically since their inception. I obviously have no idea how to operate one. This is echoed by the fact that I don't have the problems with Comodo (nagging popups) that others point out. *end sarcasm*.

If you claim that any outbound filtering/app control doesn't ask questions after initial setup, it is a flat out misrepresentation of the truth, period.

And your query was indeed stated in that other post, several times in fact. But I guess people only acknowledge what doesn't conflict with their stance and disregard the rest. There are several features not included in the free version. It is a (self admitted) stripped down version. This isn't the case with Comodo's free FW.

 

Agreed, by every definition. Use CPU usage, or anything else as your benchmark and the statement still holds true. I think that usually when a product feels "bloated" to people, again, it's because of compatibility issues. It's not playing well with something else on their setup. If it were purely that programs fault, it would feel bloated to everybody.

 

And Comodo does handle those problems, just fine for the vast majority of end users. So the problem must lie in a combination of things, i.e. setup/compatibility issues. Otherwise this problem would occur for everybody. I'm sure that some people have had problems uninstalling virtually every program that's ever existed at some point. But if 99% don't have that problem, then by simple method of deduction the problem must lie elsewhere.

I think that quite often registry cleaners are the culprit too, especially when messing with advanced settings.

 

Possibly. Do note though

implies I believe it shoud be that way, but in reality

you don't always get what you expect.

I concur on the registry cleaners, I don't use them and that is one reason why I don't.

Sul.

 

Ok...

I wanted to know, about packet filter, what is the diference between free and pro version?

 

I have met a firewall that does just that: Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. It won't give you any sort of alerts when connections are blocked. The only alerts you'd see would be in Event Viewer, and even then you'd need to manually start the logging via cmd line.

-Edit-

Are you referring both firewall and HIPS? Or, do you also have in mind such as separate programs? If the first, then so far all firewall + HIPS I've dealt with introduce alerts, some more some less.

Now, if we're talking about firewalls alone as well, then Windows Firewall with Advanced Security won't alert.

-Edit-

I just installed COMODO to test something, and there's quite an impressive list of trusted vendors. Insane to remove them all one by one! What the heck, no option to removed them all, or select a few straight away

 

pipspeak, here's the truth of the matter.

1. Software has bugs
2. People aren't perfect so the support they see or get will affect their judgement.

In regards to 1 & 2 does that mean a program is bad? NO it just means things aren't perfect and with any company or software program out there you're going to run into some sort of issue.

Have you heard this saying?

'You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time'.

Now is Comodo bad, good, without problems, or something you shouldn't ever mess with?

Well the truth, is they make a good product, the end result is, it boils down to the experience you get from it. If it leaves you with a good taste, then don't worry about it...


PEACE

P.S. This is also called 'Software 101'.

 

Used Comodo Firewall and like most say loved it but hated it. It was very noisy always poping something up. Great for somebody that wants to know everything going on with their system. The program did seem to have a nice UI in my opinion. I truthfully liked the Firewall. I then tried the AV but it would freeze on a regular basis. This was version 4 about 3 months ago. It just seemed like the AV still had some bugs to work out. I will continue to believe the Firewall is very good but I personally think the AV needs work. It still even in recent tests I have seen detected lower % of bugs than Avast, Avira, AVG, Norton, and many other suites offered. Now, that of course was just the AV. I'm sure with all the multiple layers with the entire suite on it would stop most of the bad things from getting through. Personally, I have gone to the Online Armor Firewall as it's way less noisy and I feel it does as good a job of protecting as Comodo does.

 

I have been using their software for the last 4 years on and off and I have to say The latest version is without a doubt their best effort yet. I'm not crazy about their AV and only use the firewall/hips/sandbox componet. The UI in v4 wasen't that bad but I really don't care for the UI in v5. However, the protection and quietness is great.
Ice

 

I see a lot of people talking about using everything but the AV. This is my intention too, as (even free) Avira is almost certainly better than Comodo AV.

However, could the system actually be less secure in any way, by using this combination? i.e. because the AV is not actually "combined" with the FW/HIPS, something could slip past?

 

No your security won't be diminished by using a 3rd party AV rather than CAV.It's important to remember that the major purpose of running the AV in CIS is for usability,the core security is contained within D+.You'll be equally protected (advanced users) by running no AV at all,but of course it then requires more micro-management without the filtering out of the 'known bad' stuff.

 

I gave Comodo the fifth chance and it failed again, I got BSOD 124, now I have to remove leftovers from registry and pray, that the bad driver is gone.