There's been a lot of traffic on the Wilders and Avast sites about Comodo Personal Firewall. It's freeware.
But I can't recall that anyone's mentioned how the thing actually performs.
Although the program is released by a reputable and trusted publisher in New Jersey, the program's site is strangely deficient in clarity as well as basic information, such as what the requirements are in order to run it. My impression is that this program's source is someplace extremely off-shore.
With the intention of trying it on one computer still running Windows ME before using it on two boxes running XP Professional, I ran into a brick wall: a message that indeed, it doesn't want to see anything earlier than the NTFS file system.
Can anyone provide insight into whether it's worth persuing this program further?
What I'm implying is that the Comodo installation routine will not run in Windows 9x. I don't know if the program itself will or won't run in Windows 9x. The company has provided no information about requirements on its site. I have queried them twice and have received no answer about this question. They did reply to me, by the way, about something, but the responder's writing was so unclear that I didn't know which problem he was addressing. Obviously, it wasn't the platform question.
- Fill out the form below with your name and email address to download Comodo Personal Firewall
- Your activation code will be sent to the email address given.
- Please activate Comodo Personal Firewall in order to get your free license.
a lot of registration trouble for a one year free firewall. Is it finally free after 2, 3 , 4? contacts with their site?
From the avast forum :
- Ages to boot and completely broken connection.
- Comodo couldn't even connect to it's own servers to verify my lisence.
to verify my license? Sounds to me as a phone home tool. Every time I boot I have to get permission to use that firewall or their site get some info? Great!
I'm sorry for Comodo, but I still treat their firewall as spyware. It's my computer and it's my security concern and I don't risk my security with this firewall. Even if it is the best firewall ever I don't trust it, too much spyware behaviour.
Well, I think I'm beginning to agree with you in one or two respects.
It's not the activation code: cctivation codes sent to the user are not unusual these days. It seems to be one strategy to keep the publisher's site and/or email from being bombarded by spammers: this is a real problem.
But unfortunately, the behavior of the company and the state of their web site for this product seem at the alpha stage. I haven't even tried the program, although I did receive a download. There's been no spam. But I don't want to be an "alpha tester." I may or may not try out the program, but I'm inclined not to -- especially since my return email from the publisher was so unclear as to be useless, and my request for clarfication was unanswered.
Oops, alpha tester? No thank you. That requires a lot of communication and no interaction from Murphy's law. I was testing something and had finished the email responce and my provider went down for 48 hours and the other site was waiting and waiting and was wondering why I didn't answer.
I love open endings ;-)
it's strange that .... we are the only two talking about Comodo it's strange that .... nobody answered who use Comodo it's strange that .... their site looks so official ( also does phishing sites ) and after months no Comodo-user has respond who really uses the program.
From time to time people are asking about Comodo in newsgroups. Well, maybe in the next year I get more clues. But using Win98SE and Linux I don't think I will ever use or test Comodo. Thanks a lot for your answers about Comodo.
It's been an interesting dialogue. And, yes, it does seem that we're the only two prople discussing this program on two newsgroups. I, too, am still using Windows 9x (ME), but moving completely to XP. As I mentioned previously, I've determined that Comodo will not run in Windows 9x.
It does seem strange, too, not only that we're the only people talking about Comodo, but that as I recall, on the two web boards where people are discussing this program, there's been a lot of discussion, but
-zero- reports by anyone who'se actually used it! Some of the discussion has involved strange action -- automatic jumping to a completely different publisher, for example (who is probably affiliated).
And, who is the actual publisher?
My hunch is that this program is being developed by people in eastern Europe -- only one of whom can communicate in English, and only barely. I have no objection to this, after all, if the situation were reversed, I could not communicate in Romanian. And some very fine software is coming from eastern Europe (I've just installed Kaspirsky AV/Firewall on one machine). And a very good firewall is from the island of Cyprus (my point being that good programmers/developers don't only exist in the "first world.").
I think that what's especially enticing about Comodo is that the scuttlebut is that it's the only program that I know of that can actually block the "tooleaky" firewall test. But without any other knowledge, we don't know so much more -- like, what's the cost of this performance: will it bloat the entire system, consume vast resources and so many time slices that the computer will be almost useless for getting any work done.
It's fun to be on the leading edge sometimes. However, I'm feeling burned out since I recently tested a whole bunch of text editors and every freeware metronome I could find. For real-world text work, by the way, every one of the editors flunked. They are probably fine for programmers, and really should be called "programmers editors."
I've decided to (for the two machines that don't have Kaspirsky) stick with the now-legacy Sygate for my firewall. As a backgrounder, on the third machine, I'm using the System Mechanic utility suite (payware), which is bundled with a year's worth of Kaspirsky firewall and antivirus.
here are some people who used Comodo Personal Firewall and some tests they have done
formatting link
and here is a link to a page where Comodo people have answered about whether the Comodo Personal Firewall will be free or not after 1 year (it will be free)
formatting link
Original Message ----- From: Desktop Personal Firewall - Comodo To: Sasha Sent: Monday, November 08, 2005 7:15 AM Subject: Re: Need brief info regarding Comodo firewall [193973:210450]
Hi Sasha,
Product will remain free you dont need to pay but as you said you have to re-registed. you dont need to pay or switch to any other product.
At Comodo we are commited to providing high quality free desktop products. All we ask in return is that you continue to register the product.
And support is free.
As we get feedback on the products we will continue to evolve them.
Any customer wishing to report an issue can do by emailing snipped-for-privacy@comodo.com were the technical support team will assist 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Garry Bickert> here are some people who used Comodo Personal Firewall and some tests > they have done
it would be nice if you answered at least some of our questions in this newsgroup. Is it NTFS based? Which OS? Version update policy? Etc. It's nice that there is an Avast forum for Comodo but if you want more info from an Avast picture link you get the message :
-- It seems that you are not allowed to download or view attachments on this board.
-- Please login below or register an account with avast!WEBforum. Not the best way to find Comodo info; isn't it?
Some hints for a better Comodo presentation :
- The Comodo site could show Comodo shots ( and from the other products )
- the Comodo site should show the requirements
- a good installation program shouldn't ask for contacting the site for further info and/or programs. A program works or doesn't work on a platform; all the neccesary files should be included. If a program doesn't work on WIN98/WINME/? the install program should abort without installing anything; It's not that difficult to test the OS.
To answer your questions, or at least the ones I think you are asking:
The system requirements are (which will appear on the web site soon):
Windows 2000/Windows XP SP2 Internet Explorer Version 5.1 or above
32 MB available RAM
15 MB of available free hard disk space
You mention alpha, we do not do alpha testing, we dont do Beta versions etc By the time the product reaches market it has already been tested extensively. Obviously not ALL situations can be covered, as with any software. Once we get feedback we can then simulate and fix accordingly.
The reason the application must contact the web site is to automatically install the license from the license code we send. This avoids manual intervention from the user having to download and install a file to a specific location....and it works well.
We only ask for Name and email address for the license.
I don't know where 'Spyware' comes into this from earlier in this newsgroup, this product is most definitely not spyware, it doesn't gather information from the machine and it doesn't return any information to our servers, so how can it be spyware? Unless your definition of Spyware is somehow different?
One question was 'Who is the Publisher'? Comodo is, and we are a global company with our head office in the USA. We also have various offices around the world, including R&D in the UK.
Feel free to let me know if you have any further questions.
I will take on board your suggestions for improvement and pass them to the relevant department owners.
no, you couldn't. Even if your software is for XP computers there are to much combinations in the field. I could hangup a specific program with 2 mouse clicks and the author couldn't recreate it. I think your company has much more testing possiblities, but sometimes you have to accept that it wont'work. Let's say a computer has 256 Mb memory; you don't know if it's 1 * 128 Mb +
2 * 64 Mb or whatever combination. It could be important for a problem. It's good to have beta testers in the field; I think it gives a product more trust.
of course this will works well; XP users are stupid ;-) and are not capable to download and install anything if it requires their intervention. Sony's rootkit software also works extremely well. It is an option to skip the user interaction, but I don't like it and never use this software. I think you will understand that there are people who refuses this construction; they only install software offline. If I want to do a re-installation or install it on another computer I always have to contact the "license site". Oh dear. Could you use as a privat person the Comodo firewall on more then one computer ( let's say for testing your own LAN for weakness from within? ). Testing Comodo ( but why should I or must I; you say it's safe ) seems no option. OK, how about a compare with my current firewall? Do you have to activate your firewall within 24 hours after receiving the email for getting the license or could you activate it next month and could you activate your license again and again after once having recieved the license code?
sounds great but this is a mistake. You get more info ( like the real IP info ) when the application contacts the website.
very easy; if a program needs to contact a site for further information it is considered as spyware.
that's how you want to read it. No information to our servers, but maybe to another server? Zonealarm did; if I remember it well they call it they had to check the fingerprints from virusses, trojans, etc. The average user is to stupid to know which application is allowed or not allowed to contact the internet, so this type of user always granted whatever program internet permission. To prevent this behaviour the application "phoned home" to ask what to do.
For now Comodo seems a firewall for people without questions; just like the build-in XP firewall ( SP1 ) which doesn't protect you for outgoing traffic. Microsoft tells you it just works great, but are you well protected enough? No way.
One more Comodo question. You have the construction : programs/applications --> local proxy like Proxomitron --> firewall -->
internet access Could Comodo block unwanted access through a local proxy?
'If I want to do a re-installation or install it on another computer I always have to contact the "license site". Oh dear'. Not true.....it is possible to copy the license between machines after it is successfully installed on one.
'Do you have to activate your firewall within 24 hours after receiving the email'? No, it sits there waiting to be collected...no time limit, why should we, its free. However, we do set a limit on the number of collections of that license. But we do not restrict anyone from signing up again.
You say its a mistake that we log the IP the request comes from, I disagree, we don't subsequently use that information in anyway. The IP allows us to reasonably provide customers the right currency pricing, when they apply for any product that is purchased.
'if a program needs to contact a site for further information it is considered spyware', i'm sorry and no offense, but that is the weakest reason I have ever heard, and if that is the case then all search toolbars would be classed as spyware as they contact a database via the website and provide the results. Spyware is by definition: Any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Our Firewall does not do that, and does not store any data on any of our servers relating to the customers information. Except the IP as mentioned earlier.
'Could Comodo block unwanted access through a local proxy'? I had to ask our developers on this one, that answer came back:
It will ask 2 questions in case of a local proxy :
for the application which is trying to connect to the local proxy
for the proxy server which is trying to connect to the internet, the actual connection attempt will be caught when the proxy server tries to connect.
... skipped all; see previous message for the questions/answers.
thanks a lot for your answers
Sounds like the Comodo firewall solved this (big) firewall problem. I would love to test this, but I don't use XP+SP2
It would be a shame if it doesn't :-).
there is a lot to do and talking about this item. For example : if you buy at Amazon you get "tips" what other people who also bought that item also bought or/and the advertising is user related depending on the things you already bought or searched for. Company's call it personalised advertising or something like that and they also say there only purpose is for statistics. Is a (search)toolbar an information collecting program or spyware? If it only contacts the database you might be right, but there is more activity. If a user don't know what information is send to a site when Comodo installs itself it is placed in the spyware catagory. There are already too much programs for which this is normal behaviour. Wait one year and every program phones home under XP. If this is bad or not or unwanted or not is not a Comodo firewall question; this thread is about the Comodo firewall.
I didn't wrote that; I only wrote that you got more info when someone contacts a site. (( > > We only ask for Name and email address for the license. > sounds great but this is a mistake. You get more info ( like the real IP > info ) when the application contacts the website. ))
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