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Originally Posted by Maui Nick
I've used ZoneAlarm for about as long as I've been using Windows; I find it's still fast and secure. Email scanning isn't a feature I need because I have other software that looks for malware in e-mail; that said, the current free version comes with MailSafe activated by default.
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I was not going to bother replying to your post, because the thread was about Comodo, not Zone Alarm - I only mentioned it as an explanation for one of the reasons I wanted to try Comodo. ZA isn't fast - well not as fast as it used to be. It has become bloated - it's a 13mb download for heaven's sake (Comodo is 8mb), and the free version does *not* do mail scanning. See the
ZA web site for confirmation. If you look at your ZA settings, you will see that while you have a MailSafe option, in the free version it only scans VBS files. It used to scan all file types. I never liked that option by the way - I only mentioned it as an example.
Back to the topic. I have some feedback on Comodo - skysidhe is using Comodo, and there might be someone else out there in the Cellar who is interested (doubtful as it is).
Comodo's strength is that it offers the user very fine control over the firewall settings. You can selectively block a particular program from accessing all but one or a few IP addresses. By that I mean you have the option of allowing a program to access one IP address, or a range of IP addresses. Personally, I think this is overkill.
By default, when Comodo is installed, it sets it's security level to low. You can adjust the sliding scale through a range of security levels, up to "very high" (for the paranoid). At the top setting it will prompt you every time a program tries to connect to a new IP address. This is very irritating, and I cannot see why a home user would want this feature.
The authors of
the Comodo Personal Firewall say that its main benefit is to prevent spyware and keyloggers from hijacking your browser. With Zone Alarm once you give your browser access to the Internet, it does not prompt you if a third party program uses the browser to access an IP address. Comodo will ask you every time (even on the low setting). They say that this gives you the chance to prevent a keylogger from sending your details out. I found it annoying after a while because so many programs use this feature legitimately (like various Adobe products, Nero, and thousands of others).
I have found several bugs in Comodo, and tried to report them to their support staff. I was ignored until I jumped up and down, and finally received some responses. The last one basically told me that it was a free program, so "p... off". Which I did. I have gone back to ZA temporarily, until I can find a better solution. As I mentioned in my first post, my need for a software firewall is not urgent, because my router has a solid firmware firewall built in. I will probably end up paying for a good firewall, and hopefully one that has good support, unlike the morons at Comodo.