I tried out Comodo briefly, but it sees Firefox running under Drop My Rights as an 'invisible application' for which it cannot learn any rules.
Anybody using Comodo needs to understand TCP and UDP connections. There is nothing to highlight that TCP in is dangerous. (Unlike Kerio which gives them a red banner.) All the connection pop-ups look the same and it's easy to click yes without noticing that it's a potentially dangerous connection.
...
...
True, they could solve that a little bit better... but hey c'mon... firewall just kicked in, we all can contribute somehow. No one is saying we are not allowed to give them our suggestions so they can improve it for the one of upcoming releases. I'm sure they would listen some reasonable suggestions. I sent them 2 e-mails in just one day and I in next few hours I already got two answers... it tells something. It's a freeware product and still there technical support completely free of charge. Similar to avast! Isn't that what counts ?
The firewall seemed to be stable and secure, but a little bit difficult for users who don't really understand internet connections. (Like me.)
It needs to be a little bit more user-friendly if it's going to compete with ZA.
That's why we have some easy-to-use firewalls, as well as some rule based firewalls for more experienced users...
There is so many settings you can manually configure it's just unbelievable... I would need to extend this thread at least 5 additional pages to post all screenshots. You can always add new banned/allowed application through the very first screen you see when you open Comodo firewall...
Oh yes, it already competes with ZA freeware (we are talking about freeware class), as I mentioned ZA freeware doesn't even try to warn you when tooleaky.exe is trying to execute, it just aloows it do it's thing without even asking a user... And tooleaky.exe is just one of many of those...
[If you did the shields up test (or any for that matter)while connected to router/firewall you're probing the router ip not your computer.
Of course my friend, I know what you are talking about. And everybody should know that for a long time by now... we are in computer security related forums. I just thought it's not needed to repeat that, I assumed everyone already knows how to test software firewalls.
Yes, of course, I bypassed my hardware router/firewall while doing these tests. I was in the middle of switching from my old D-Link DI-604 to Linksys BEFW11S4 v4 wireless router (got a brand new laptop as a present from my wife so I finally decided to move to wireless, although my primary desktop PC is still connected through wires... always playing on safe side
).
I thought that was also good idea to try some other software firewall, and Comodo looks so promising already. I think I'm gonna stick with it for a long time...