Comodo Personal Firewall: what do you like about it?

General Topics
21

Comodo Firewall is actually pretty nice (apart lack of Vista compatibility), though resource consumption was rather high compared to some other firewalls. I’ll give few reasons what i like and dislike…

  1. I always want nice trey icons. Thats one and first rule for any of my programs. I watch those icons all the time in trey bar and i don’t want some crappy jagged icons with awful graphics or meaningles icon like Outposts blue question mark. WTF!? If there is a traffic indicator, it has to be optional. I liked avast!-s spinning ball but i prefer it stationary, because i was staring at it most of the time, instead doing something productive. If there is an option to enable/disable it, thats cool :slight_smile:

  2. Must be P2P compatible out of the box (especially with eMule which puts every firewall to a test).
    This means it should act as Stealthed but should also not drop important packets and choke itself on resource side like ZoneAlarm does with eMule (starts to consume massive amounts of memory and CPU, badly affecting PC’s speed). Sygate, Outpost, Comodo and Windows Firewall never had such problems.

  3. There has to be 2 modes, Basic and Advanced. Some prefer all the features and tightest leak control (Advanced).
    I don’t need that as it’s annoying (for me alone) but i like to keep basic control over programs connecting to internet (Basic).
    So, a program checking without crosslinking over DLL’s and other mechanisms. Just direct programs connection monitoring. I don’t want firewall to be annoying, which becomes quiet fast even if you have massive programs database.

  4. Logical and easy to use interface with settings properly categorized and arranged so you don’t have to look for them over entire interface.

  5. Warning popup has to be nice looking, peferably displayed as popup above clock (similar to blue VPS update popup just a bit different so you can notice the difference and of course a bit larger) or similar to McAfee Firewall popup. I liked that very much. Also info on it is displayed nicely so almost anyone can understand it.

  6. It has to pass ShieldsUp tests with flying colored numbers. I know it’s not much but it’s a basic thing that every firewall worth using should pass (while still allow P2P tools to work properly!, this part is especially tricky because most of firewalls pass the ShieldsUp but bork up the P2P apps to the max, mostly with it’s ping handling engine!). Comodo required tweaking in the Network Monitor part to even work properly on both fronts (as mentioned earlier).

So much for now. I’m really looking forward to test this tool, hope there will be a free edition of it too :slight_smile:

22
2. Must be P2P compatible out of the box (especially with eMule which puts every firewall to a test). This means it should act as Stealthed but should also not drop important packets and choke itself on resource side like ZoneAlarm does with eMule (starts to consume massive amounts of memory and CPU, badly affecting PC's speed).

I’ve used eMule with ZA on two computers, both 1.8GHz machines, the newer one a dual core machine. ZA worked with eMule “out of the box” with no problems on either machine.

Comodo does not work “out of the box” with eMule: even allowing it server rights results in the mule wearing a mask in the tray: a low ID.

Comodo requires a special rule to work with eMule.

http://forums.comodo.com/faq_for_comodo_firewall/emule_and_bittorent_tuttorials-t411.0.html

I agree that Kerio is excellent in the user-friendliness of its pop ups: green is good, red is bad- that’s pretty easy to understand. ZA is OK too with alerts that tell you an application ‘wants to access the internet’ wants to access the trusted zone’ and ‘wants to act a server’.

One drawback for Kerio is that visiting Shields Up! generates red pop-ups for incoming connections- these must be blocked with a rule for the firewall to pass this and other stealth tests- ZA blocks these connections “out of the box”. One good point for Kerio is that it allows you to block incoming connections for all new applications. With ZA I occasionally get a blue pop-up telling me an application is trying to act as a server: it doesn’t seem to be possible to block all new applications from accepting connections by default.

Comodo pop-ups used to talk about TCP/UDP connections- meaning it was only for people who understood network connections, but the new version has dropped these messages, talking about applications wanting to access the internet or act as a server a la ZA, but Firefox generated a message about the application wanting to act a server with a network address. This required a Google serach for information:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=117569

ZA simply says that Firefox wants to access the trusted zone, which is a lot more understandable.

Kerio was my personal choice on my old computer until it suddenly stopped loading at boot up, when I switched to ZA. Previous to that it had intermittently refused to load and been the cause of more than a few BSOD’s.

I tried Kerio on my new computer but it crashed twice immediately after installing. I reckon Kerio is the most buggy of the trio- ZA runs without a hitch, and so did Comodo during my brief trial.

To extract the main points from the above:

  • A firewall should be stable.
  • A firewall should stealth the computer by default.
  • A firewall should have pop-ups that can be understood without knowing about network protocols and IP addresses.
  • A firewall should work “out of the box” and not require special rules for individual applications.

It’s also reassuring to know that a firewall will block intrusion attempts: Symantec firewall (one of the best) used to download intrusion signatures from time to time just like an AV program- not sure how useful this feature was, but it was very impressive. ZA occasionally updates itself, and I’ve read this is to respond to new intrusion methods. For me it’s good to know intrusion detection is there, even though I don’t understand it.

Well, that’s just about everthing I like or don’t like about firewalls: hope it’s useful. ::slight_smile:

23

“green is good, red is bad” is not so good for us colorblind users. The alerts should always include a graphic or text.

24

ZoneAlarm doesn’t work even though you may think it does. It’s dropping packets that it shouldn’t and overal eMule performance is very bad compared to other firewalls. Sources take long to connect and some never even connect properly.

25
The alerts should always include a graphic or text.

There is text as well.

http://www.geocities.com/dontsurfinthenude/kerio_setup.htm

ZoneAlarm doesn't work even though you may think it does.

I’ll bear that in mind, but since Comodo requires a rule and Kerio was unstable, I seem to be stuck with ZA.

It always seems to perform OK, well enough for me anyway.

26

We were very close to get this engine 8)

The answer to the screen message, the time to answer, is poor… you can wait for the firewall to ‘remove’ the message after you click the “Allow” or “Deny” button.

Well, other firewalls requires this tweaking too in order to allow High ID of P2P, don’t they?

You can configure this to low-level of disturbing questions…

27

Hi Tech,

Comodo is fine, and allows Torpark with Privoxy enabled, but is not free of an occasional bug there to close it, allthough it isn’t at bad as ZA that closes down all the time.
Comodo then reports: “You have found a bug in COMODO, now it has to close down”. Annoying, really.

polonus

28

Tech, i meant the look and feel of the popups, not how they work. I hate firewalls that display screen centered warnings (warning in the middle of the screen). Donno why but i hate that. I like if antiviruses do the same but so far avast! warnings were never annoying because of this.
Unless if they’ll make same popup dialog just with different graphics (red burning wall instead spining radioactive logo :wink: ).

29
Well, other firewalls requires this tweaking too in order to allow High ID of P2P, don't they?

ZA doesn’t.

ZA that closes down all the time.

??? ZA hasn’t closed down once in six months on this machine. I guess different people just have different experiences with the same software on different machines.

30

You’re not alone ;D

Well… isn’t it worse? Allowing server rights to all ports?

31

I still use and like an older version of ZA free (version 6.1.744.001) as it does a very good job and is easy to use. The newer versions of ZA are not as good. The version I use never has crashed and it does not allow server rights without the user giving those rights.

32
Well... isn't it worse? Allowing server rights to all ports?
...it does not allow server rights without the user giving those rights.

Correct. Also ZA only gives server rights to eMule, and I assume only to the port(s) eMule uses while open?

33

Hey alwil, comodo decided to give you a chance :D. From here: http://forums.comodo.com/general_discussion_off_topic_anything_and_everything/alwil_software_working_on_a_personal_firewall-t10495.0.html

maybe someone should mention to them, then we can provide them our engine, so that they don't need to develop their own :) We do have an OEM programme, where we can create a version for them.

Melih

Quote from: LeoniAquila on Today at 04:11:27 PM Oh, would you actually help a competitor? Or maybe you don't conside them as real competitors as Comodo makes money from certificates, and Alwil from AV? I believe Alwil makes a good antivirus, but any company would need help to get close to Comodo's firewall 2.4 - and any company would need more than just help, to approch CPF 3.0. ;)

Don’t worry Melih, I’ll continue to spread the word of Comodo, no matter what Alwil is up to!

As you rightly pointed out, we have different business models, hence we don't mind helping them at all. Any security vendor wanting to OEM/Private label our firewall is welcome to it :) Just send me an email and we'll help you out..

Melih

34

I thought that was a really nice offer from Melih, maybe Alwil will take them up on it :slight_smile:

35
Hey alwil, comodo decided to give you a chance

Interesting - but I don’t think this will actually take place.

I mean, we’ve been working on the FW engine for some time yet (so there’s already lots of effort behind it), plus I still consider Alwil a technology company - that is, it’s not our business model to resell someone else’s technology.

Cheers
Vlk

36

I agree with you.
Moreover, there’s AVAST! users don’t like CPW.
I am sure AVAST! firewall will be great.

37
Moreover, there's AVAST! users don't like CPW.
There are many avast! user who are currently using Comodo's Firewall. Until avast! comes out with their own which is equal to or better than Comodo's, I intend to keep using it. Comodo's Firewall at least passes all of the leak and stealth tests which is more than I can say for a lot of the other Free Firewalls. :)
38

I use COmodo FW because is free and, how you said, passed all leaktests.
I know AFW will be better than CFW, and i expect will be lighter reources user, like AV. And i desire will bew available in my languages(catalan(1st) or spanish(2nd)

39

Hi vlk,

When I know what I know about avast, I think the FW will be greatly appreciated. Very curious as to what you guys have in store for us here.
Will you launch a pre-launch for the evangelists to test it, so you have a general idea what you are offering to the public at large? In that way you have a nice bunch of beta-testers,

polonus

40

Yes I would love to test Alwil’s firewall and help report bugs, if that is possible I would be very willing to install it on my test machine.