Comodo Personal Firewall: what do you like about it?

[Lisandro]

Vlk, here you say:

My opinion on Comodo?

We haven't done any thorough tests so all the following is just my 'impression'):

+ solid protection
+ strong user community
+ nice GUI

- the emphasis on leak tests passing is IMHO misleading. Leak tests should NOT be the cornerstone of firewall quality
- moe generally, I don't like the way they market the product.


Overall, I'd say it's still one of the top contenders (although I'd personally prefer other products at the time being [but these are not free of charge]).

Thanks
Vlk

1. If the emphasis on leak tests passing is misleading, what would be the parameters to judge a firewall?
2. What would be the way to market the product that Alwil will adopt to its firewall?

Thanks.

When I don't receive answers from the staff I get sad...
I don't want to ask by email... isn't this a forum? isn't if a forum a place to ask?

[drhayden1]

isn't this a forum? isn't if a forum a place to ask?

seems so if you can ever get an answer tech

[DavidR]

@ Tech^TM
Well my personal view is that the leak tests are an artificial means to 'try' and equate one firewall against another. The problem comes when firewalls actually look out for these leak tests. Outpost got caned in the matsu(whatever) firewall test (but even so scored highly) as matsu though that outpost was looking out for the leak tests and using some hooking that he felt was wrong to achieve that.

Component control is one thing which is difficult to test, as is process injection and this may not be fully/properly tested in the current leak tests. These I feel are more important than any  leak tests, the problem is how to test.

[Lisandro]

Well my personal view is that the leak tests are an artificial means to 'try' and equate one firewall against another. The problem comes when firewalls actually look out for these leak tests. Outpost got caned in the matsu(whatever) firewall test (but even so scored highly) as matsu though that outpost was looking out for the leak tests and using some hooking that he felt was wrong to achieve that.

Component control is one thing which is difficult to test, as is process injection and this may not be fully/properly tested in the current leak tests. These I feel are more important than any  leak tests, the problem is how to test.

Thanks David. Still waiting for Vlk's answer.

[Vlk]

1. If the emphasis on leak tests passing is misleading, what would be the parameters to judge a firewall?

Leaktests are popular mainly because they are very easy to perform: you simply run a program, and it tells you PASSED or FAILED. However, life is not that simple, unfortunately.

The primary goal of a firewall is to keep hackers out of your system, that is, prevent INBOUND attacks in the first place. I find it almost astonishing that many firewaller "testers" only focus on outbound protection, completely ignoring the inbound part (which is absolutely vital). It's like they assumed it worked flawlessly in case of all the products - which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be the case, really.

Next, outbound protection is of course also important, but so called 'leak tests' are not everything. There's a myriad of other things that a decent firewall should do, and which are usually not assesed by these tests.

All I'm saying is that testing a firewall is a very complex task and focusing on leak tests is a gross (and inappropriate) simplification.

2. What would be the way to market the product that Alwil will adopt to its firewall?

I'm not a marketing guy, plus it's too early to talk about these things. Let's wait till the product is in a beta phase.

Cheers
Vlk

[Lisandro]

Thanks Vlk.
Wishing the beta comes out this year (yet).

[news]

The primary goal of a firewall is to keep hackers out of your system, that is, prevent INBOUND attacks in the first place. I find it almost astonishing that many firewaller "testers" only focus on outbound protection, completely ignoring the inbound part (which is absolutely vital). It's like they assumed it worked flawlessly in case of all the products - which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be the case, really.

Agreed...totally. I'll be willing to test your firewall in it's beta stage on my test pc whenever the time comes Vlk.

I'll be around...looking forward to it.

[Rafel]

I am COMODO USER, but i use AVAST AV, and AV is awsome. I'm impatient, because i expect, i know, AVAST FW will be one of the best FW.

[drhayden1]

looking forward to the Avast!Firewall....

AVAST FW will be one of the best FW.

if not the best as is the anti-virus

[Lusher]

Let me point out another obvious but often overlooked fact.

Even though Matoseuk gives Comodo Firewall the highest leaktest rating, in the comprehensive overall firewall evalution of popular firewalls products, it is not Comodo that is ranked the highest.

That should tell you something...

[rdmaloyjr]

I have used a lot of different firewalls, some were rated 0 protection from "leaks" to excellent.  Nothing has gotten by any of them. 

ZA free (rated poor on "leaks") has kept hackers out by sometimes cutting my internet connection.  A hacker tried to shut down ZA & failed.  ZA held!

Jetico (rated excellent) blocked hackers & kept my internet running.

No doubt immunizers like SpywareBlaster, Advanced Windows Care Personal, SB S & D, WinPatrol & Spyware Terminator's immunizer have protected many systems from infection that had poorly rated (from "leaks") firewalls.

Secure browsers such as Firefox & Opera have defenses that have saved the day for many with poor "leak" fw's.

I have read in this forum that avast! protects from one or two "leak tests". 

I'm not sure if some anti-spyware programs like AVG AS, SAS, ST & WD protect from "leaks".

My point is that I agree with vlk.

There is a lot of "crossover" protection today, if you use an av, as (real-time), a secure browser & fw.  Keep everything up to date & you should be fine.  Don't overdue it with too much active protection.  Conflicts can occur.

I can't wait for the avast! firewall!

[Vlk]

Even though Matoseuk gives Comodo Firewall the highest leaktest rating, in the comprehensive overall firewall evalution of popular firewalls products, it is not Comodo that is ranked the highest.

That should tell you something...

Actually, I know 'Matousec' (conincidentally, they're also based in Prague and last time we talked, they mentioned that they find it quite frustrating that most people only look for their leak test results. While in fact, they've done many more analyses (beyond leak testing). The page people should use (instead of the leak test results) is this:
http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/results.php

According to the current results, the current "king" is the Kaspersky firewall.

Cheers
Vlk

[news]

A lot of good information on this site. Explains in detail so many things I really need to know about firewalls. You can never know enough.

Thanks for the link Vlk.

[Sesame]

I think Comodo users use software such as SSM to deal with the weakness.  Likewise, conventional firewalls mainly dealt with packet filtering and had almost no protection against the "con-game" played by more sophisticated modern hacking attempts.  In fact, some still prefer to using Kerio 2.1.5 with SSM.  So, ultimately I think it comes to the combination.  Nowadays routers do quite a lot of packet-filtering and, to some extent, it is natural for people to be interested in leak tests but there should be an eye on other sneaky attempts to fool firewalls.

To Vlk and other people working on firewall project, like other people here, I am looking forward what you are doing.  Good luck. 

[Lisandro]

According to the current results, the current "king" is the Kaspersky firewall.

It's not free... looking forward Alwil firewall.

Comodo Personal Firewall 2.3.6.81, now Comodo Firewall Pro, is a firewall with very simple security design, which is far from being perfect and misses some important security features. But the simplicity is also one of the strongest qualities of this product because a potential attacker has not much chances to bypass the implemented protection. Comodo firewall offers the best anti-leak protection among over 20 firewalls we have leak-tested. Comodo firewall is free in its full version, this can be a strong argument for many end-users. Because of the design imperfections, it is relatively easy to bypass the protection that Comodo Personal Firewall 2.3.6.81 implements. However, the vendor of this firewall is working on its new series. We were told that this is going to be much more secure solution. First beta-versions of Comodo Firewall 3 should be available in a few months.