19 replies to this topic

[Jimmy89]

I was recently looking around for a new firewall and came across the Comodo Firewall - and it got me interested. According to reviews, the program is pretty good, its stable, sturdy and works well. I am currently downloading it to see how it goes - but I was just wondering if anyone else has tried it and what they think of it?

Also, they have a free anti-virus (only in beta 2 at the moment) - has anyone tried that yet?
-jimmy

[wutske]

I have used Comodo firewall before when I was looking for a replacement for Sygate Personal Firewall, back then I didn't realy like it (mainly because I was looking for something exactly like SPF, but something that didn't hung when I used Mercury Messenger).
At the moment I use Comodo Firewall Pro Beta on my laptop (Vista Home Premium) and I must say that I'm moderatly happy with it , you'll have to take your time (a lot) to set it up exactly the way you want it.
The built-in Defense+ system is a nice addition (it monitor application behaviour), tough it's annoying because by default it ask you everytime a program uses a DLL, access the registry, ... I've turned it down so I'd ask me a lot less -if it asks too much you don't read the messages anymore, rendering the defense+ system useless-.

I'd say, give it a try, take your time and you'll be happy .

ps. the defense+ system can solve a problem with WMP11 . Normaly, it'd take about 5-10 seconds before a track would load and then the song sometimes skipped. If you prevent WMP from loading MFPMP.exe, this problem is solved (the downside is that you can't play wmv or wma files anymore).

Edited by wutske, 17 September 2007 - 12:39 PM.

[TavoxPeru]

I have used Comodo firewall before when I was looking for a replacement for Sygate Personal Firewall, back then I didn't realy like it (mainly because I was looking for something exactly like SPF, but something that didn't hung when I used Mercury Messenger).
At the moment I use Comodo Firewall Pro Beta on my laptop (Vista Home Premium) and I must say that I'm moderatly happy with it , you'll have to take your time (a lot) to set it up exactly the way you want it.
The built-in Defense+ system is a nice addition (it monitor application behaviour), tough it's annoying because by default it ask you everytime a program uses a DLL, access the registry, ... I've turned it down so I'd ask me a lot less -if it asks too much you don't read the messages anymore, rendering the defense+ system useless-.

I'd say, give it a try, take your time and you'll be happy .

ps. the defense+ system can solve a problem with WMP11 . Normaly, it'd take about 5-10 seconds before a track would load and then the song sometimes skipped. If you prevent WMP from loading MFPMP.exe, this problem is solved (the downside is that you can't play wmv or wma files anymore).

Ok, thanks for the informationk, i will give it a try, because i just uninstall the SPF because cause some trouble to my online activity.

Best regards,

[ethergeek]

I wrote a review of Comodo Personal Firewall on my blog awhile back...here's the link: http://www.ethergeek...irewall-review/

[Jimmy89]

I have installed the program once it finished downloading, and so far its looking good! You're right about the amount of pop-ups that it has, but once its got into my pattern of usage, hopefully it wont be as much of a problem.

ethergeek, your review was great, thanks!

[faulty.lee]

I'm also using Comodo right now. Before that i was using Sygate Personal Fireware. I liked SPF very much, but because i use emule and utorrent a lot, they seems to cause memory leakage at SPF, the memory usage of SPF increases tremendously. And since the stupid Symantec bought over sygate just to take out their competitor, I ended up have to try other firewall.

I've tried a few before ended up with Comodo. Earlier, it also have the same problem when i do heavy downloading in emule and utorrent, other than memory leak, it also eat up a lot of CPU %. Later, about a month ago, the problem seems to be less frequent. Maybe due to the recent update. Also, if you do run emule and utorrent, i would recommend turning off Component Monitor and App Behavior Analysis. The rest works find with default settings. Another thing is under App Monitor, most of the app i use, i would set it to Skip Parent Check. If not, when the same app is called from another app, it will popup and ask you the same question of whether to allow it or not. For example, adobe acrobat reader. If you run it from startmenu for the first time, it's parent is explorer.exe. Say if you allow it. Then later, you try to open a pdf from your firefox, it will prompt again, this time the parent is firefox.exe. To save some trouble, and also to keep the app database small, i'll always select skip parent check. If your app database grow too big, it will hurt performance as well.

[Sten]

i just use the windows firewall, lmao, i have pc cillin but my brother has to have the windows one on because the pc cillin firewall wont let him use wi-fi.

ive never heard of comodo before so i dont no wot its like

[Jimmy89]

I recommended giving it a try! I have only had it for just over 24 hours, but so far, I'm happy!

[TavoxPeru]

Well, i just install the Comodo Firewall and only to say that it is very complete and easy to configure and use, also, i notice that it uses less memory than SPF and until now don't bother in anyway.

Thanks ethergeek for the review.

Best regards,

[wutske]

i just use the windows firewall, lmao, i have pc cillin but my brother has to have the windows one on because the pc cillin firewall wont let him use wi-fi.

ive never heard of comodo before so i dont no wot its like

I don't realy recommend using only the windows firewall. First of all, it's doesn't have outbound protection (eg. if there's some kind of malicious software installed on your computer, then it should be blocked before it can send data or spam or ...), second of all, it's weak and since it's been used so often it's the number one target for hackers.
And if the PC cillin doesn't allow wifi connection, then it should be configured better.

[Dave Herbst]

Re Comodo - I have tried four times today to download it - it takes forever, and somehow, something crashes out every time at somewhere between 80 and 90% download.
Can anybody PLEASE help, please.
I'm going nuts here.

[faulty.lee]

I've got the new Comodo Pro 3. Very interesting feature set. And there's performance improvement compare to the previous version, considering many features that's added into this version.

Too bad though, it didn't migrate my firewall settings over to the new version when I updated it, via it's own auto update. Maybe due to the difference in architecture. Now have to setup for most of the application I work with. I'm a hardware and software programmer, so the number of software I use is quite a lot, having to do all that again, sigh ;(

The new Defense+ is also quite good. Works more like a virus cum spyware protector. Not a full fledge antivirus or anti spyware, but i think it helps to prevent damaging result from those program that we download from the net. It doesn't need to check against the virus pattern for known virus, rather, it's based on behavior. Being so, it also trigger quite a few false alarm. Well, better to be safe then sorry.

As an overall, I'm quite happy with it so far. Haven't got a need to end task it due to high cpu utilization.

Highly recomended

[Jimmy89]

I downloaded the pro version when comodo said it had a update and it looks and works really well! The small Defense+ notifications in the bottom of the screen are not to intruding but are still interesting to see whats being loaded!

[Dave Herbst]

Thanks everybody.
I finally managed to download the software and it is running now - little notifications all the time - "Comodo is learning" or something like that, and also larger pop-ups requesting the equivalent of "Are you sure?", but it seems to be working fine.

[Jimmy89]

As I, as well as many others have learnt comodo loves its popups! but you get used to them after a while

[Dave Herbst]

Hi Jimmy 89, thanks.

It seems that the more the Comodo "learns", the less often the little pop-ups, and the other warning screens appear.

Comodo seems to work very well, and since I've gotten rid of Norton (finally) my machine is a lot quicker.

Bye now

Dave

[wutske]

I've installed the final version for vista a few weeks ago and I am so happy now . It works a lot better than the beta versions and the new network detection is a great addition (tough I don't see why it notifies me 10x for the same network ).
The defense+ system got a bit annoying so I've just disabled it , I don't visit louche websites and I do have a good virusscanner installed, so the need for the defense+ system is low.

The only thing I do miss is a feature that the windows firewall does have, and that is a more advanced network detection. Everytime you connect to a wired or wireless network, windows asks you whether it's a public, private or corporate network and based on that information it (de)activates some rules. If Comodo could detect networks (instead if IP-adresses) and would trigger some rules based on that information, it would be the greatest of all

[faulty.lee]

The only thing I do miss is a feature that the windows firewall does have, and that is a more advanced network detection. Everytime you connect to a wired or wireless network, windows asks you whether it's a public, private or corporate network and based on that information it (de)activates some rules. If Comodo could detect networks (instead if IP-adresses) and would trigger some rules based on that information, it would be the greatest of all

I think it's not possible for comodo to include that, or at least it's too complicated to include that.

Imagine, for windows file sharing, you would want to enable it for LAN but disable for WAN(public) right. So, similar to windows firewall, you would block windows file sharing, but have an exception at LAN. But in comodo, how would you want it? Park the exception under the setting for windows file sharing? Or under network setting for LAN?

The windows firewall doesn't offer much control or configuration, but for comodo, it does. Thus having this kind of option will make it very complicated to configure. Not many user would know how to go about it.

[Dave Herbst]

All very interesting, most of way above my head, but thank you all for all the advice.
As long as Comodo does what it says it does, the little screens do not bother me all that much - little bit annoying, but somehow comforting, knowing that something is happening to protect the machine.