Online Armor Firewall Shows Strong Promise

Hi Duckbill,

There was a bug in the release version of OA which stopped you blocking trusted programs. It's now fixed. If you continue to have some kind of problem, you're more than welcome over at our support forum.


Mike

 

A newbie weighing in here. I have just bought 3 computers for my family and am trying to see how to protect them. I don't really care about free or paying -- but I am trying to understand what will protect me without me having to really think about it. So I took my old PC and played with OA, ZA and Comodo (the latest version) to see what seemed to work most quietly without alot of distractions.

For me the clear winner seems to be Comodo - largely because the firewall seems to have lots of protections built in that other solutions don't have -- e.g. anti-malware protection. Also OA's free edition seemed to be "lite" but their paid versions did not seem to add much other than more "options".

Then i started some research reading reviews etc. Here's my question. When I tally in all reviewers etc -- Comodo comes out on top (e.g. PC Mag etc) with the exception of one reviewer who has a newsletter and works for computerworld. He seems to be the only stand-out and he likes OA better (looks odd actually). I am not sure I actually understand what he is saying (something about no protection in the basic firewall). Can someone explain his issue -- when I read Comodo info they obviously disagree with his perspective. How credible is this one reviewer?

 

Do you have a link to this fellow's review we could read? Your brief description doesn't allow me to comment.

 

The lone review that is negative that I do not understand is from someone named Scot Finnie. Not sure who he is exactly -- the link http://blog.scotsnewsletter.com/2008/01/20/do-not-rely-on-comodo-3s-basic-firewall. Lots of folks on his blog seems to disagree with him on his take on Comodo - so I am guessing he may not be too much of an expert. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Seemed to be is the word. It's actually extremely capable, the power is hidden under the hood.

Can you point me at other recent reviews of Online Armor? As far as I know, it's not really been reviewed anywhere aside from Matousec (which was one specific set of tests, and not a review), an article in the Columbia tribune the commentary on several blogs.

 

Digidame,

As you have three family computers,you obviously also have a router,which itself will act as a NAT firewall.
Therefore you really dont need more than Windows existing firewall,but OA really will serve the purpose very nicely.
Rubeking in PC Mag didnt highlight the features in Comodo,which would make it problematical for novices,or indeed any users. Scot is now taking these into account.
Dont get paranoid about security,you will uneccessarily torment yourself -OA is perfectly adequate.