Comodo Firewall Revisited
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At this month’s newsletter over at Scot Finnie’s site, he addressed concerns about the Comodo firewall that were expressed by some of his readers. Scot was also kind enough to provide a link to an article I did in December of last year after trying Comodo. In that article I was disappointed with the performance of Comodo and subsequently uninstalled the software. But this current issue by Scot stated that the newer version of Comodo version 2.4 was vastly improved.
Scot also mentioned that Comodo was in the process of also releasing version 3.0. He states:
Comodo 3.0 Is Close
I got an email from a Comodo marketing VP letting me know that Comodo 3 is about six weeks away from release. I don’t have much detail on the product, but some of the product features are listed on this Comodo Forums post.
The most notable changes are Windows Vista support (both 32 bit and 64 bit) and a host-intrusion-prevention system (HIPS) module — both of which should be welcome additions.
Reminder: This evaluation focuses on software firewalls for Windows XP SP2. More and more software firewalls are being updated to support Vista, but at the time that I started this work, not enough of them supported Vista to make that a useful endeavor.
So with this in mind, I have downloaded and installed Comodo firewall 2.4 on my own personal system. I will be trying it for at least a month before reporting on my experiences. Or, it could be sooner if I run into problems. Hopefully this will not be the case.
Comments welcome.
Scot’s July newsletter here.
Tags: comodo, firewall, test, scot finnie, newsletter
11 Comments
marc klink
July 18th, 2007
at 12:46pm
Ron, you should read the Comodo forums. There is help there to remove the firewall.
It worked well while I had it on my machine, but became annoying when it ‘refused to learn’ quite a few settings after a while. I’m guessing many have this same problem as it is well documented on the site. However, it must also work well for many as it still gets some user applause in diverse places.
What is not clear is what is taking so long to implement a removal routine, since so much of the bad press it is receiving is because of that.
When it works, and before it decides to ask if a previously visited website that you ok’ed can be allowed, it is very good. It could be great if those 2 things were addressed…I’ve been waiting while 7 sub-revisions over nearly 2 years have been released.
Ron Schenone
July 18th, 2007
at 2:20pm
Hi Marc,
Yeah it is still in its learning mode. But since I have only had it installed for 24 hours., nothing unusual has happened yet. this reminds me of Zone Alarm free. Either people love it or hate it. They have problems or not. It’s just weird.
Thanks for the forum suggestion. If I need to uninstall it and have problems, I know where to go.
Ron
Harold
July 19th, 2007
at 5:25am
Howdy all,
I’ve been running Comodo FW 2.4 for apx. month with no problems. HIPS took a bit of time to complete as I have a lot of software downloaded in storage “Must do some House cleaning”. Love the FW and switched over to the whole suite. C.A.V., BOCLEAN.
Thx Harold
MAC
July 19th, 2007
at 7:45am
Does it work with Windows XP64? I’m kinda flying solo right now.
Ron Schenone
July 19th, 2007
at 7:49am
Hi Harold,
Thanks for the information. I’m hoping this newer version of Comodo works better than the old. In about a month I’ll report back my findings.
Ron
Ron Schenone
July 19th, 2007
at 7:51am
Hi MAC,
Sorry. No 64 bit support.
Ron
Doug Manne
July 19th, 2007
at 9:58am
Hi Ron If you have Questions/Problems you will find the Moderators in the Comodo Forum quite helpful. They have around 20 active Moderators and Admin.
With the current version of Qnext providing Web Links to share photos - music and files, the free Zone Alarm left several ports open. After working with one of the moderators “Little Mac”) I was able to add new rules, so with the GRC ShieldsUp port scan and leak test every thing passed.
I goofed on the new PcFlank Leak Test. From IE went directly PcFlank, ran the port scan everything passed but the new Leak test failed,
Found IE needed to be manually started. Downloaded the file, Did a full clean up of files and registry rebooted. Clicked on the leake test which had me manually start IE, the leak test now passed. But I have always failed the cookies and referrer test (even with Zone Alarm Pro)
Also If you want to get less or more alerts to better watch and control what is happening, Go to Security - Miscelaneous If you uncheck Do not show alerts for the Applications Certified by Comodo (their white list) you will get a flood of alerts. If you have a program you would like to add to their white list, Go to applications and right click and send to Comodo to analyze.
I was suprised how many I got for just IE after I unchecked it, have since rechecked it.
Also if you drop the slider for Frequency Alerts from low to very low, you will get one alert per application. Sometimes I prefer more control.
Finally both Qnext and Comodo will be coming out with new releases, not sure when Qnext will be out, but Comodo should be out near the end of August. Here is a comment from one of their Moderators
“Little Mac”: “…….. And yes, v3 of the firewall is in Alpha testing right now. It’s very different from 2.4; most of the concept of the rulesets should cross over, but there may be a little bit different process. We may also find it to be easier to run QNext than it is now.”
UncleDoug
Ron Schenone
July 19th, 2007
at 11:33am
Doug Manne,
Thanks for the information and also the tips. Your comments are very much appreciated.
Regards, Ron
dabom
July 22nd, 2007
at 4:53am
I had 2.4 on several machines for about a month but found it to be a resource hog 20% or more proc use when downloading from several sorces. When not downloading much it works great. would love to hear how it goes for you
Ron Schenone
July 22nd, 2007
at 4:59am
dabom,
Thanks for your comments. Wii be posting after my testing is done.
Ron
Harald Sandstrom
November 23rd, 2007
at 10:36pm
Hi Ron,
I’m not a registered user, but I’d appreciate feedback nonetheless if you’re so disposed.
I run a mac OSX 10.4.11. Looking for a secure, free firewall I came across Comodo version 2.4 and your evaluation of the previous version. I obviously can’t use that on a mac, so what do you recommend?
Many thanks,
Harald