Comodo Firewall: Friend or Foe?
Fred, When I downloaded the Comodo firewall, I was surprised to see the company offering several other free security programs: Verification Engine (anti-phishing), AntiSpam (which uses the "challenge-response" method you detest), BackUp, iVault, Email Certificate, Anti-Virus.
Whoa! Comodo Anti-Virus??? I've never heard of this product. It doesn't appear anywhere on any of the major anti-virus testing organizations' lists -- whether products that passed or failed.
AV-Test.org:
http://www.av-test.org/sites/links.php3?lang=en&extra=viren&sort=1
Checkvir.com:
http://www.checkvir.com/index.php?CN=30.3.49&CIE=0
WestCoast Labs:
http://www.westcoastlabs.org/cm-av-list.asp?Cat_ID=1
Virus Bulletin:
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/results?display=summary
ICSA Labs:
https://www.icsalabs.com/icsa/topic.php?tid=2a81$b6842a01-34de0d0d$b893-e1463ae4
I suppose there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation: the anti-virus program is version 1.1 beta. It's so new that no one has had the chance yet to test it. The Firewall product is a newly released version 2.0; thus the chance for word to have got around.
Then I found something else a bit troubling. Alan Leghart wrote this about Comodo's anti-virus program (and it presumably applies to all of Comodo's freeware products): http://tinyurl.com/jhqru
See a report on the controversy at: http://www.emailbattles.com/archive/battles/security_aadgdfdddh_ah/
Leghart's critique has aroused quite a backlash from appreciative users of Comodo products: http://forums.comodo.com/index.php/topic,173.0.html
I'm going to dive in the deep end and see what's down there! If it creates havoc on my system, no problem: I'll just restore my partition image and be back to perfect in 30 minutes (thank to you!). ---Bruce Fraser
Critics charge that Comodo's Firewall product is a
bait-and-switch scam, offering a free-forever firewall product, but sneaking
samples of the company's other offerings without informing, or getting
permission from, users. Detractors also claim the free firewall is nearly
impossible to uninstall.
Supporters say that the company, which makes its money by selling Digital
Certificates to online businesses, is an innovator that offers very
high-quality, full-featured security and privacy products free of charge, and
that its Launch Pad marketing is a creative way to build mindshare.
On the company Web site, Comodo confusingly over-emphasizes its firewall. It's
not secretive about the additional utilities, but they're de-emphasized enough
to raise suspicion. The Launch Pad utilities aren't an effort to upsell or trick
users into buying something. They're totally free, full-featured utilities that
happen to come with Comodo Firewall.
Regarding the charge that Comodo Firewall is very hard to uninstall, it appears
that may have been a concern with a previous version, but has been rectified
with the current product. The company seems to listen to complaints and work
hard to address them, which is impressive support for a fully featured, totally
free utility.
Some users have other complaints, such as that the utility's UI is obtrusive,
and that the company blatantly hawks for-pay offerings in the software.
What's impressive is that few users complain about the performance or
effectiveness of Comodo Firewall itself.
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