So let’s roll the tape to put this situation in perspective and maybe you can understand why it was not just a “tempest in a teapot” to us.

As has always been the case, you had access to anyone in the company including the CEO. A week before the post, you had conversation with the CEO as well as the development team. Questions were asked and answered. A few days later – we see the post that was shocking to us (yes – shocking), “DO NOT RELY ON COMODO FIREWALL”. The post went on to say about how you were “honor bound” to disclose what you just learned.

Why the shock?

It was NOT because we disagreed with an opinion. We were truly shocked that a seasoned and respectable editor would publish a highly provocative headline, quite open to misinterpretation particularly by less technically savvy readers based on facts that were incorrect. “How”, we asked ourselves,”could an experienced editor not know that this type of headline was unbalanced and easily misunderstood”.

What facts do we think you got wrong? Here they are as succinctly as I know how to put it.

1) You said Comodo had no outbound protection in basic installation mode – wrong (and we note that you did amend this recently)
2) You said that Comodo in basic installation mode had no leak protection. Also not true.
3) It was not clear that the “basic” installation mode was a customized configuration until you added a minor note later in the day
4) You suggested that the lack of outbound protection was something you “just learned from Comodo Executives” when in fact this feature was there all along.
5) You incorrectly advised Vista users to uninstall the application and reinstall it to activate leak protection when that was not necessary

These wrong facts, we believe, led you to wrong conclusions. So what were we expecting? A clear correction or retraction or clarification to your unfair headline and post. That seemed the fair thing and well in keeping with your philosophy of unbiased and objective reviews (a philosophy we totally support BTW).

Finally, we agree that we should work together to ensure accuracy of information. In that vein, I respectfully remind you that I reached out to you not once but twice. I offered to have you speak with anyone at Comodo again to answer any questions. You rejected our overtures by confirming your unbiased perspective.

It seems Scot, that if a collaborative policy is what you believe in, then that would have suggested that you share with us this type of post in advance to be sure you had the facts right (not to change any opinion you may have formed). At the very least, after the post came out and we alerted you to the inaccuracies, you would have made every attempt to understand the technical aspects we believed were inaccurate. You chose not to do either of those things and we respect that choice. However, then one is compelled to turn your question around and ask, Why did you opt to launch the”war of words” with a headline that seemed designed to be controversial at the expense of Comodo?

We too would have preferred to work it out. That did not seem to be an option open to us.

Judy Shapiro
Comodo

Bottom line: I would have been happy to correct my blog post for accuracy if you had taken the time to work with me. Why did you opt to launch the war of words Ron describes?

At Comodo a point of pride is that fact that we are open to feedback. Good and bad. There is no small irony to the fact that this “basic” firewall installation mode which caused all confusion was a last minute addition because users wanted that option. We will continue to respond to our users because that is what ultimately creates the most brilliant solutions. That’s as it should be.

Judy Shapiro

Of course that is only an opinion! LOL

My opinion is that a firewall needs to be approached from a standpoint of having no problems, then addition of features, one at a time. Apparently the idea used by CFP and TallEmu is add all the features, then sort out problems on the fly - Not great for people who need to use their computer.

Either way CFP is way too intrusive for me. Any firewall that can, at ANY time render my dual core machine to be as slow as an 8088 at 4MHz, it is too intrusive.

Update on Online Armor: I woke up this AM to find that my computer was rendered essentially useless for 15 minutes, as it took that long to get control of the machine after Online Armor decided that AVG Antivirus scanning was going to be the SINGLE task that would be allowed at that time. Off came Online Armor, a step ahead of Comodo, as it does appear to uninstall cleanly. Back to Sygate Personal Firewall, which only affects usage of the network interface, as a firewall should work.