Best Firewall to use with Avast 5, Comodo or Online Armor?

[brhokla]

I have Avast Pro 5.0 so it does not come with a Firewall.  Lately I have been testing a couple firewalls and wanted to ask other users about their experience/thoughts about two Firewalls in particular, Comodo Firewall and Online Armor Firewall? 

I have tested both and they seem to both work well with Avast.  The Comodo seems to pop up things more, much more but that may mean it's more powerful?  Thoughts? 

Online Armor seems to be much easier to use, almost very easy but yet it still shows tons of information and can be tweaked quite a bit.  Is it as powerful as Comodo?  Which is preferred by other users here in this forum and why? I've been trying to locate some tests that show performance, stability and which rates best but have not found anything really up to date on the two products. I'm trying to decide which one I want or need to make my regular Firewall.  Thanks

[GloobyGoob]

The amount of popups does not indicate how strong a firewall is. It's just that Online Armor makes more decisions than Comodo. You can reduce the amount of popups by disabling D+ if you wish.  It's up to you on which firewall you want to use; they are both good.

[Vladimyr]

Don't discount the firewall you already have! W7 firewall

Note: If you end up with Comodo, there's a glitch in the installer that doesn't disable the W7 firewall. You'll need to turn off manually.

[Rednose]

For a setup with a Firewall + HIPS my choice would be :

- Avast! Free
- OA premium
- Sandboxie Pro

But I have to say that I didn't test CIS 5 so far.

Greetz, Red.

[SafeSurf]

You can see by my Signature that I use Avast Free with OA Premium, and have been for quite some time through the various versions with no conflicts.  I do not get the nag-ware pop-ups that used to happen with the pre-OA v.4.5.0 (current version is 4.5.1.431).  OA's GUI is user-friendly and can be set for newbies, advanced, or banking mode and it interchangeable.  I have tested OA Premium on XP-Home, XP-Pro, Vista and put them through the various stealth tests and come out 100%.  Keep in mind that each machine is different, and that you may want to trial the software for a month prior to purchasing to see how you like it and how it "plays" with your other software.

[Vladimyr]

Should've mentioned in my earlier post, I've never used OA so I can't honestly recommend it. But I trust Tall Emu/Emsisoft ahead of Comodo.

[schmidthouse]

  Keep in mind that each machine is different, and that you may want to trial the software for a month prior to purchasing to see how you like it and how it "plays" with your other software.

I'll second that. Excellent advice for anyone wanting to"actually pay for a firewall". Some venders have a 'no refund' policy...Agnitum being one(Outpost FW). Not sure about Comodo or OA. However I believe Comodo FREE 60 day ON LINE CHAT SUPPORT is a great! idea. For basic effective and reliable firewalls there are some really good FREE FIREWALLS available. Just depends how much mucking around you want to do. Many firewalls give you lots of tweeking options but IMO does not translate into significant difference in protection or "strength".

[brhokla]

I have installed both Comodo and Online Armor.  They both have things I like about each but recently I had a couple issues with another Comodo product and I'm leaning more towards the OA product.  It seems to really run well on my system.  It's only been 48 hours though since installation so that could change!  So far though I'm really impressed with OA.  Seems to run nicely with Avast 5.0 Pro.  Also seems to use less resources than Comodo did as I don't even notice the program running and have experienced absolutely no slowdown.

[BRANDONN2008]

I've been using Comodo for a month or so, mainly because of how good Def+ is. It hasn't cause me any headaches, except I had to tell it Steam was okay.

[Tgell]

With Comodo Firewall and avast!, the firewall adds registry entries every time avast! updates unless the settings are changed.

http://forums.comodo.com/defense-sandbox-help-cis/comodo-firewall-free-inflate-the-windows-registry-t65331.0.html;new

[jason7619]

I'd go for Online Armor Premium. Comodo has many pop-ups that are cryptic in nature. To the not so well versed it's deny or accept without understanding it. Yes, OA makes decisions better than Comodo but during first week of use it seem ot to learn what you input BUT it get's to learn it and pop-ups disappear. I use Outpost Pro ver 7 and loving it with AvastPro. I'll be testing OA Premium on Win7 again probably next week. Got a new license.

Might want to take a look at this:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=230343


http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=239750

[Sammo]

After testing many of the firewall/hips solutions I settled on OnlineArmor Premium. Its easier to use and provides more protection than Comodo with less resource usage.

Take a look a this "Comparison of HIPS to prevent penetration into the core of Microsoft Windows" (you need to google tranlslate it):
http://www.anti-malware.ru/hips_test_ring0_2010

Only Online Armor, Online Solutions Security Suite, Outpost Security Suite Pro and Spyware Terminator passed the test with default settings.

[hayc59]

Go with Online Armor and stay away from Comode

[BRANDONN2008]

Darn. I've been going over this myself whether to use Comodo or Online Armor Free, but you guys are making me lean towards OA, especially with the registry thing, but I've been working on resolving that. The main reason I'm using Comodo is because of the outstanding HIPS protection, which hasn't bugged me much, but if OA's is as good, I would probably use it. However, I noticed I have to register to use OA, and it doesn't have automatic updates. These are minor inconveniences, but still.

[SafeSurf]

I noticed I have to register to use OA, and it doesn't have automatic updates. These are minor inconveniences, but still.

You do not have to register...you can do a free trial of either the Free or Premium version for 30 days.  And it does automatic updates in the Premium version; you set it for how often you want it.  I have it set for every hour, but you can have it set for daily or every couple of hours or manually.  The Free version you have to manually update with just a click of the button on the main GUI and it only takes seconds to update.  It's very user-friendly.  If you like the software just prior to the end of your trial period, then you can register it.