Comodo Free Firewall

This post was written by admin on June 21, 2009
Posted Under: Free Firewall, PC Security, Technology

Update February 2009 - Comodo Internet Security released click for details

Comodo free firewall also includes an antivirus which can be installed as both a standalone firewall or a standalone antivirus or as an Internet Security Suite.

I would recommend installing the firewall only as the antivirus does not perform as well as some others. This is a matter of personal choice though, as many users are happy to have the integrated firewall and antivirus, but it does impact resources.

As a security suite with the firewall and antivirus it becomes somewhat bloated and does not play well with all machine configurations.

Comodo claim that their firewall is unique in that it passes all known leak tests to ensure the integrity of data entering and exiting your system. Comodo has put this firewall through all kinds of tests to ensure that its firewall is powerful enough to ward off these attacks with default settings.

The firewall is a good, solid and dependable firewall and in independent tests it performs very well with a product score of 96%, the results of which can be found at the Matousec link at the end of this article.

Version 3.9 includes multilingual support, stateful file inspection for the real time scanner and stronger defense mechanisms if using the antivirus.

Compared to other free firewalls it is simple to install and easy to get used to once installed and the permissions set, with few popups once it has initailly recognised the running programs.

Softpedia deleted Comodo from their downloads because Comodo contains adware and BHO’s which are unnecessary additions to the security suite.

The installer attempts to change both the browser’s homepage and search engine, by providing these two options pre-selected in the setup process and also offers to install SafeSurf. SafeSurf is a third-party component and there is also the toolbar powered by Ask.com. Users can and should untick these options on installation.

At the end of installation there is the option to scan your machine for malware, but if you are not installing the antivirus and have alternative antivirus and antimalware programs installed then simply reboot to finish the installation.

Once installed it configures many of the settings for you with little need for the user to make any changes. The default settings offer excellent protection on inbound and outbound traffic.

As each machine is configured differently, it is for the end user to try different programs such as firewalls and antivirus and see what works for them. As I have said before, the user must be comfortable with what they are using.

Download Comodo Firewall + Antivirus here V3.9 - June 2009

System Requirements:
Windows XP/2003/Vista 32bit and 64bit machines
150 MB hard disk space
64 MB RAM