If you look back in this thread at my first posting you will see that I brought the subject up very gently. Others here have taken a more aggressive stance against me and so I have upped the anti. I have no need to slam this product but I see a need to point out its failings where I see them - I am sure you are in agreement with that.
I do feel that it will be difficult for you to maintain that this f/w will resist tests in all conditions because they are being installed on machinces that you have no knowledge of. Maybe you should say that it will resist if installed on a clean install of Windows. If you can get it to work in all conditions, then credit to you.
I do have a worry that you will give users a false confidence that they can go anywhere without getting into trouble. This is presumably being aimed at the mass market where people have little knowledge of the vulnerabilities they may expose themselves to.
I hope you can now get everyone back on track and accept there is a problem instead of attacking those who find fault.
I think your unluckiness was mostly because of the thread you reported the bug. Since the starter of this thread did not aim to report a bug but was aiming something else, you received the same attention.
We did appreciate your feedback and are on the issue to fix it.
Glad to see that battle lines have been withdrawn.
Don’t what the OP’s issue was, but at least he brought to light a problem with the f/w. Surely the more that find faults the better whatever their motive might be, and it was posted in your own forum rather than in some newsgroup.
If you’re wondering why I havn’t replied for awhile, I’ve been watching this thread in dismay. I find the tone of some of the responses to be in a different spirit than I would care to participate in.
Let me further clarify what the issue is. The issue is that Comodo is not passing the main leak tests (cpil & pcflank are the only 2 tests I’m using as they seem to be very popular). Of course logic dictates that the basis in my decision to report the issue lies in the fact that Comodo is supposed to be passing these leak tests. If that’s what some of you are taking such high offense to, my apologies. If it were not intended to pass these leak tests, then I would consider it normal behavior & not report this as a bug or malfunction during the beta.
For further clarification, this is an issue with the firewall software coding in it’s current state not passing 2 particular leak tests (cpil & pcflank, not sure about others as I am not using them). It’s not really specifically my issue persay, though I do not take offense at that viewpoint since I did open this thread & some unscrupulous posters have been trying their best to invalidate it ever since by turning it into my issue & my agenda etc, rather than acknowledge the problem & make any attempt to fix it, as is done in most betas. This issue is certainly not mine alone, there are plenty of people on these forums & elsewhere on the net experiencing the same (google & download.com are beginning to turn this issue up). To those of you whom have tried to be helpful in finding a solution, I appreciate that. But at this point I can confidently say that this is indeed a coding issue, there is nothing more that can be done on my end as a beta tester regarding this matter.
I don’t mean to offend any developers by pointing this issue out, & if a software developer or ravenous delusional fan cannot hear about anything wrong with a software during a beta without turning it into a conspiracy theory to derail the project… I don’t know what else to say on this matter. Well, actually, I could say, it would much more likely be those very kinds of attitudes & unprofessionalism that would be the cause of any problems the project may experience. And please try to understand, if you sense any kind of attitude from me in my reporting of this matter, Comodo is telling me that it passes these leak tests (one of which is it’s own test found on the Comodo site), but I’ve tried a few versions of Comodo & it has never passed, so I might be getting a little frustrated with it. You know how the saying goes “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” It would be different if it wasn’t telling me it could do it, I wouldn’t expect it of it for no reason. And then to top it off it’s trying to lower my confidence in other products by telling me that other firewalls cannot pass these tests, which even if Comodo is only not passing due to a bug in beta rather than a false claim, the part about other firewalls not passing is simply untrue. By logical process… hmm, now if half of what it’s telling me is definitely untrue, & the other half remains untrue through multiple version releases, & when I report the matter all I get back is a bunch of flak & denial with no acknowledgment of the problem & the issue is said to be mine rather than the beta software… what would you conclude? Only Comodo (or it’s developers etc) know for sure whether they’re being honest or not. By simple deductive reasoning one can conclude that either Comodo is lying, or Comodo honestly doesn’t realize that it’s claims are false. I suppose the jury is still out on that? Hence I am still waiting to test the version of Comodo that passes the leak tests. I prefer to give it the benefit of the doubt, but if you’re telling me no changes will be made & that the problem doesn’t even exist when I & so many other users no that it does, what do you expect me to think? The vast majority of people after running your cpil test & realizing it fails rather than take any interest in the beta & report any bugs or discrepancies just uninstall it never saying anything & never look back, or worse yet, they begin to say plenty & word will spread, but it won’t all be in your own forums where you have the power to hit the delete post button. As for claiming that others don’t pass leak tests when they do, that should probably be rectified, that kind of false advertising can earn you a bad rep even if you can succeed in coding Comodo up to pass the leak tests.
I am a person of honesty, integrity & competence. And though a few antagonists have replied to this thread & attacked my character & motives personally, rather than spend any further time defending my honor & in doing so exposing them more personally & embarassing them beyond recoverability, I’ll allow them to save face, I’ll keep a cool head & stick to the facts & issues at hand here.
I went ahead & tested again on a freshly formatted drive to be sure. Was thinking perhaps some of the stubborn registry entries could be the cause, can’t always delete all the old registry keys as they seem to get locked up. It still flat out fails the 2 leak tests I’m using (cpil & pcflank), & it does this for many others too. Sometimes it does yield a popup, but the text goes right through whether instantly hitting the deny button before the page loads or waiting a few seconds while reading the popup as one would do in a real situation while deciding whether to allow or deny.
There’s nothing unusual about the main test system being used. It’s a fairly standard P4 3Ghz, 1GB RAM, Windows XP SP2 (all updates). Now this was done on a freshly formatted drive with a fresh XP install, so there’s no chance of old Comodo registry entries contaminating the installation or testing process. I’ve also tested on a few other similar Intel/XP SP2 systems, same results. I honestly don’t believe the hardware configuration plays much of a role in this type of test as long it’s all up to date standard modern equipment. Of course older OS’s can be a common cause of variables when people are using previous versions of windows, as developers don’t always take this into consideration or sometimes make the decision to discontinue support. But in this case everything is standard & up to date, I really can’t be sure why people are coming up with different results, or they might simply be thinking it passes due to the popup that tells them about the leak.
Indeed there does seem to be much confusion regarding this matter, & in all honesty, both in this thread & several others, I’ve seen a similar number of people reporting that Comodo is not passing the leak tests as well as those that say they do pass the leak tests, but not cpil or pcflank, which are the only 2 I’m using just to be clear. I’ve also seen a number of people that while in the end may concede that it must be passing, it’s as if they know it’s not really passing but they’ve finally just been beaten & worn down & defeated, not unlike a false confession. It’s not as though I am one isolated individual Comodo fan experiencing this against an army of raging mad Comodo fans that are experiencing otherwise & are all too upset that I have, god forbid, mentioned something wrong with our precious Comodo during a beta test phase which is supposed to be used for bug testing & feedback. We all know what a beta is, right?
I think an all too common scenario may be taking place here, the classic “hate the messenger” rather than “hate the message.” And I think some people may be losing sight of the fact that we’re not here to argue about whether an issue is occurring or not, the issue is a fact. Rather we’re here to report our findings in an attempt to come up with solutions, & sometimes those solutions have to be implemented in the program itself, not at the users end. Keep in mind, it’s a beta.
Here’s some screenshots to help pinpoint the problem, perhaps this can help lift the blanketing fog of denial surrounding this issue. Disregard the test text making mention of failing all leak tests, I’m only using cpil (Comodo’s own found on the main Comodo website) & pcflankleaktest.exe (found at pcflank.com). I don’t have time to continually test all tests & these 2 are the main current tests.
The first 3 screenshots are Comodo on a completely fresh install of Windows XP SP2 with all current updates
As you can see it does yield a popup here, but it does not block the leak. The same result is achieved whether I hit deny or just do nothing, which should be the same as deny, pending my decision. The test itself mentions something along the lines of “a big well done if your firewall has alerted you that so & so is attemtping to connect to such and such” but I beg to differ. To my firewall I would say this, “gee, thanks for informing me that my information is being leaked while going ahead & leaking it, why do you even bother to ask me if I want to allow or deny it when you’ve already made the decision to let my info through?” The test should be giving a big well done to the firewall if it successfully stops the transmission of data, not just if it tries to tell you about it while deciding on it’s own to allow the leakage & disregard any choice you make, & then to further keep taunting you about it with every subsequent internet access.
Here’s the popup again after the test has already been executed & the browser has been closed & reopened:
This popup persistently comes up about cpil with any internet access untill the system is rebooted, even if it is another program accessing the internet for entirely unrelated business.
Here’s pcflankleaktest.exe (I’ve covered my IP in the picture)
Now this time on this fresh format/install, Comodo did not yield any popup for pcflank. This seems to be inconsistent though, I believe it may have yielded a popup for this one in previous tests or previous beta versions (the release version has never been installable, always with the launchpad error & such, I believe it’s error 006 on every system that I’ve attmepted to install to, same with the CAVS, uninstallable so untestable), but it has never blocked the leaks. And vice versa, it may not have yielded a popup for cpil during some previous tests, I can’t remember for certain. The only thing that is completely consistent is that the information is always leaked on both tests, I’ve never witnessed it block the leak like some people have reported where they think it may be blocking sometimes but not every time. Usually I just run cpil, because it is quicker & with fewer steps involved to get through the test. Also, if I recall correctly, there was a time or 2 where pcflank would cause a popup, perhaps after running the test more than once where denying it would seem to stop the page from loading, but if the link was copied & pasted to the browser it would still show the leak. And before you ask, no I wasn’t using the same test text. To be sure, this is an issue with the firewall itself, not the testers, the tests or the test systems. It just needs a little more coding to nail this issue down. We’re not beta testing the testers here, it’s the firewall software that needs some adjustments. If this very real issue is continually denied than I suppose it may never be fixed. But that’s not on me, I’ve done my best to get through & only get flak & false accusations in return. Sometimes I wonder why I bother to try to help, but then this beta is not the norm, this has been unusually unprofessional in comparison to most betas. I guess that old phrase can be true sometimes “you can lead a horse to water… but you can’t make it drink” - especially if it insists that the water isn’t there.
I’ve snapped a bunch of screens of other firewalls successfully putting a cork in these leaks, but I’m not here to advertise or for any other agenda so I won’t post those up here. Unless of course a moderator wishes me to do so, sometimes it can be helpful to look at what others are doing that is working so well to get an idea of how to emulate it. Several firewalls I’m currently testing, some betas & some having been in release for quite some time are passing these leak tests with no issues whatsoever. I’m sure there are others both currently released & in the works, I don’t have the time to test every latest version of every firewall out there.
The good news is, this is just a beta, & someone, not just one someone but many someones have reported the problem. The first step in correcting a problem is to be aware that there is a problem, so that part is out of the way, right? Beyond that it requires some troubleshooting & implementation of the proper code. But if it’s never acknowledged that anything is wrong than what’s to fix? Hopefully we’ve made some progress here & aren’t still stuck in an infinite loop at that step 0 of official denial & blame the messenger, it’s all his fault type of mentality…
Now if I were developing Comodo myself, I’d be busy correcting the matter rather than arguing that the matter doesn’t exist, but unfortunately I am not & therefor cannot provide you with the neccesary code. Since I’m merely a beta tester in this case, my duty as such is simply to report the problems I find, & I feel I’ve done my part here as best as I can, you’ll have to implement the necessary code on your own. Though I have to note, I’ve never encountered this much paranoia, conspiracy theories, accusations, stonewalling & unprofessionalism in any other beta, hopefully this can be a learning process for all parties involved, myself included.
Please, for Comodo’s sake & all the users that are taking your word for it & trusting it not to leak their info, try to look past the messenger here & see the message itself. Being quite the perfectionist I may be rather blunt or harsh in my wording sometimes, I mean no harm by it. I expect a lot of myself & am often times disappointed by others’ incompetence or lack of core principles as fellow human beings, I’m sure we can all relate to that on some level. But I really think Comodo is a great firewall & you’re all doing an excellent job on it. I’d like to use at as my own personally, not just for testing, but common sense dictates that I will use the one that proves to provide the best protection, not just which procliams the loudest that it can while telling me others can’t, yet fails when put to it’s own test. I think more what’s beginning to get to me after following this & other threads for awhile is the defensive misplaced attitude & general denial regarding the failure of the leak tests. The leakage itself is just a matter of a little coding, no biggie. And I appologize if I have come off as merely critical, accusatory, or in anyway condescending while attempting to relay this beta bug, but part of this has probably developed from reading other threads regarding this matter as well as some of the responses in this thread, which to be quite honest, are downright ugly & disgusting, not to mention paranoid/delusional & completely unprofessional to boot. At the end of the day, I think everyone involved could agree that there is definitely something strange going on here anytime this subject is brought up, like it is perhaps a real sore spot, for whatever reason. I havn’t been around here long enough to know the history, but even in some other unrelated threads I was reading in, it seems as though people are often times walking on egg shells when trying to bring up any issue they might be having with anything regarding the firewall. I guess when you become familiar enough with these forums you begin to anticipate the inevitable attacks that will come if you find any flaw that needs addressed with Comodo or need any help figuring out how to get something to work right that seems to be malfunctioning. I even saw where one one person was pre-emptively fending of the “zealots” before even trying to speak on the bug he was encountering. But on the flipside, I have also seen a handful of helpful folks as well, that do their best to try to troublehoot & generally help out. But with software like this (especially betas but even release versions) the problem is not always something that can be fixed on the user’s end, sometimes the program itself needs a little coding to correct matters.
Anyhow, I’ll sum this up & cut it down to size as best as I can without all the extra details.
Comodo beta v2.3.3.33 (as well as the last beta release just before this one, I can’t be sure on the release version because it won’t install correctly) is not passing 2 major leak tests, Comodo’s own cpil.exe & pcflankleaktest.exe. By not passing I mean that it is leaking the info. The test text can be seen in the browser, plain & simple. Please don’t turn it into another argument about the definition of what passing means as I’ve seen in other threads, or whether I use the same text for pcflank everytime etc. And just to be clear, I could care less if the test itself says the firewall doesn’t pass, even though at least 3 known firewalls are actually causing the test itself to fail & say the firewall passes, that’s no concern, simply blocking the leak is the bottom line, but Comodo is currently leaking like a sieve for some reason.
The popup continues to popup for other unrelated internet access untill the system is rebooted.
The test system is a completely standard P4 3Ghz, 1 GB RAM /w Comodo running on a freshly formatted drive /w a fresh install of Windows XP SP2 /w all updates. Consistent results are achieved on other similar machines by myself & others around the world. This is not an isolated incident that I own all the rights too, regardless of what some may believe or be lead to believe by those with perhaps, “different agendas…” as one poster puts it.
Melih: Are you saying that myself & all these people who run the tests and then come to this forum & others and say that it fails are lying?
Egemen: Would you care to elaborate on what you speculate that I may have been aiming for if not reporting a bug? Or should we just put all these silly conspiracy theories behind us & try to get some real work done on this real issue?
I’ve never participated in a beta where bug reports were blown out of proportion & even suggested to be part of some elaborate conspiracy theory where some people don’t want the product to succeed & have a mysterious “different agenda” etc, this is most unusual indeed. Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory though, perhaps there is some entertainment value to be found in this thread.
You guys are really kidding yourselves if you think I am the only one that Comodo doesn’t pass leak tests for. Most people just uninstall & tell their friends or others on the open internet about the issue rather than take time to send emails & report beta bugs in a forum.
Looking forward to testing release v2.3 to see if maybe this issue can be resolved.
Have a nice day,
xTerminus nDefinitive (“One amongst many, I am many of one.”)
First of all, let me thank you for taking the time to play around CPF. I sincerely appreciate it.
The issue was that this thread started and immediately went south by the following statement you made:
“Anyhow, I like betas & I like to test software, a lot of software. My concern is more in that Comodo is claimed to pass these leak tests, & I have never found this to be true, yet. I’m still waiting for the release that really does pass the leak tests as is claimed.”
As I explained in my previous posting, even though I could see your point of view, generalizing it to imply that Comodo does not deliver as it claims was, IMHO, unfair to Comodo, to its developers and to its users!
In your first post you asked if “your reality that is different” in that you had this problem but other’s might not have.
but in your second post the tone changed to Comodo not doing as it claims and generalizing it has caused everyone to cry foul! and rightly so!
Maybe you stumbled accross a bug, and we truly are grateful for that, but still this is only a bug and does not invalidate our claims! And anyone who knows Comodo knows very well how responsive we are to our users and bugs! Afterall, we all are talking about the Beta version and its expected that beta version could have bugs. Even though you obtained the the cpf from the beta forum, but you posted your feedback on the general forum, which was not the right etiquette and hence got few people questioning your motives.
Neither you nor the Majority of CPF users are lying, when you say you have this leak tests fail and when majority of cpf users say, they pass these tests. But this does not justify calling our claims false! Afterall, we invited our users, including you, to test a beta version of software and we fully expect it to have bugs hence why its beta!
I really hope you can see our viewpoint and wish that we can put this behind us and work together to build protection for the masses!
According to your CPIL screenshot, it may be a case that we have a bug detecting the long path names. And if it is so, it is definetly going to be fixed.
The screenshots didn’t quite fit into the forums very well that you may clearly see the entire shot of what’s going on without using a horizontal scrollbar, so here’s a link: Comodo Screens
I suppose it’s a matter of perspective, but it actually went south before that. Take a look at the junk & false accusations I was having to respond to there in that second post & you will uncover the true source of the problem. My post has nowhere near the antgonistic tone that was taken by others before that. Also it doesn’t help that you or possibly 1-2 others try to make this out to be solely my issue. Every PC I’ve tested on does exactly the same thing with the leak tests & there are many others who get the same results. The people that report passing don’t really seem to be very confident that they are really passing, & I most certainly would not call those few a majority, though I havn’t taken an official count.
As for false claims, I’d like to see this bug fixed & hope to test the next version release with success. But still to be fair, I must point out, the Comodo website is clearly stating, & I will directly quote here: “No other firewall has passed this test with default setting, does yours?” To be honest, I would never have taken notice of this had I not been so focused on that test while trying to get Comodo to pass it with all manner of settings & fresh formats etc. The truth is there are other firewalls that pass it. Here are some screens of just a few, all taken with default settings: Firewalls Passing
I’ve also run these tests directly from a saved file on various disks that has a much shorter path & without the extended user name etc. Seems to turn up same result whether running from the temp folder straight out of the web page or running the file directly from another drive/partition.
After running the test, does CPF, even though the test failed, show a popup later? Ofcourse I am assuming you do not have outpost or any other firewall installed while testing. Even not disabled bu uninstalled.
Well
any firewall company with a half a decent developer should fix their firewall for any known vulnerability within hours of finding about the vulnerability. cpil v1.1 has been out for sometime and naturally we should expect even the smaller firewall players to build protection against it… so no surprises there! Again, you will appreciate the good work that Comodo is doing not only improving its own product, but its competitor’s products by finding vulnerabilities
Comodo is always working in identifying new vulnerabilites before the hackers find and exploit them and protecting against it. For example latest version of CPIL, to be launched with the release version soon, penetrates thru outpost! I was goint to put a screenshot, but the only thing i could post is a web page saying outpost failed. So there was no point.
Of course this should in no way taken as a negative statement against Outpost. They have done an excellent work to date and they are simply not aware of the vulnerabilities that Comodo is able to discover. I am sure as soon as Comodo makese these vulnerabilities available their engineers will get to work and fix their firewall and again Comodo will help them make their firewall better (at no charge )
So, again, I truly appreciate your efforts and very much wish that we can get to the bottom of the issue you have with your machine!
you must appreciate that its really intriguing to us and we really want to resolve it for you! So I will let, if its ok with you, our guys to ask you few questions to see if we can get to the bottom of the issue you have. In a true Comodo tradition, we will work tirelessly to get to the bottom of the problem.
If this is a very rare bug, you would not reproduce it each time you run the test. Because you are telling you tested in clean XP install. So this is not a rare bug. But interestingly none of our users reported this before. Those who claim failing were always mistakenly “remembered the answer when allowing the popup”. So this was understandable.
*You may have another security software which has not been uninstalled, preventing CPF. If this is so, CPF must also fail thermite and copycat. Is it so?
I’d like to ask if you have tested the release version at any point. You mentioned that you had tested many versions. But, you weren’t specific.
I ask, since I also confirmed your PC-Flank failure report. And when I was asked to test it on the release version, I did & it didn’t fail the test.
I’m using W2k-SP4. And since all the XP users seemed to think it was OK & only the W2k-SP4 heros users had reported it, that gave COMODO the false impression that it was a W2k-SP4 specific issue. Now, you didn’t seem to have mentioned your OS before you… fell silent. If you were following the thread, as you said, I really feel you should have jumped in at that point, with a short ( ;)) message about your OS being XP. That may have helped egemen.
I do not think COMODO make any false claims as you have stated several times. Surely any claims on their web site, concerning CPF, must be about the release version… not the beta version.
egemen
* If this is a very rare bug, you would not reproduce it each time you run the test. Because you are telling you tested in clean XP install. So this is not a rare bug. But interestingly none of our users reported this before. Those who claim failing were always mistakenly "remembered the answer when allowing the popup". So this was understandable.
Huh???
This must mean my above post is complete rubbish then & the CPF PC-Flank failure I hit on W2k is W2k specific and nothing to do with xTerminus’ CPF PC-Flank failure?
Nope. That was really a 2K specific bug. It can not occur on windows XP because of its nature. I am more concerned with his CPIL report. Because failing in detecting CPIL means failing in detecting many of the basic leak tests like thermite and copycat. If CPF fails them too, then i will have a good idea.
Btw, we have fixed that 2K PCFlank bug.
I think that Melih said everything I wanted to say in my post, but he did so much more succinctly and diplomatically. I don’t want to see this turn into a flame war, and that was not my intent when I posted in response to xTerminus. I’ve worked in the IT security field for 14 years (I know, big deal) and I’ve seen posts in security forums in the past that have used tactics that were less than scrupulous in attempting to “poke holes” in a product that is going through beta testing. In fact I’ve been on the rotten end of that stick and it does not feel good. Especially when, and I’m not sure how many people know this, the huge number of hours at work and at home are spent by team members who are working on a project like this. I will tell you that it feels really bad when you’ve devoted so much time and sweat to such an effort only to have that effort and intent be questioned. Because that’s what was really being questioned here. Not that a bug was found, but what was really being questioned was the honest intent and claims made by the makers of the product. You bring that into question and you had better keep your head low my friend, not to mention having your facts straight! I felt the tone and tact taken by xTerminus was out of line to say the least, and was not posted where it should have been to start with. Coming back with a multi-page, accusatory rant, days later didn’t help either.
I have no blind allegiance to Melih, any of his colleagues, or the CPF. I also know how easy it is to test beta products (many of them as you said, xTerminus) on a home computer in your spare time without having anything real at stake. That said, I have no problem with anyone pointing out what very may well be a bug if found. But that does not necessarily make it a bug! Or even a bug that can be reproduced without going to absurd extremes. And for certain it does not mean a company is attempting to make false claims about their product. Companies will ask for beta testers for projects like this for many reasons. I believe that those who contribute what they have found through testing, do so, for admirable reasons. I also know for a fact that, that type of contribution is always welcome and appreciated. It is NOT taken as a personal attack on the product or the makers of it. Quite the contrary! I assume we all want to help in whatever way we can in making this product better.
xTerminus, I really hope you can understand why people here reacted like they did to your multiple posts, and not take it too personally. That may not make sense to you after some of the posts (mine included (LOL) that took issue with your statements, but that’s what I hope anyway. Sometimes you just have to think about what you’re saying. Your honest intent may very well have been good at heart but it didn’t come out that way.
I did report, earlier in this long thread. I didnt get any comments then. Maybe it went unnoticed so I´ll quote it:
To be fair I must join the (few?) whos comodo does not protect against cpil.exe ([s]Pcaudit test nr3 locks up my computer the first two passed)[/s] I have tried "out of the box" and I did the registry tweak and have component monitor on (not learning mode) suggested here on this forum.
Funny thing is that the registry tweak did work the first time I tried it (ie Comodo did give a popup warning about cpil.exe. It did however open up the web page but did not display what I wrote. But now it does without any warning Huh
This time it was useless information - next time it could be your credit card number or other sensitive data being passed to a hacker.
Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 is the only firewall to pass the Parent Injection Leak test with its default settings.
The http:// is added by the web page I guess coz I did not write that in Cpil.exe
I am not to worried and will continue to use Comodo (have no hidden agenda ), but I must agree that it doesnt pass the leaktest on every machine. Default settings or not.
It is the same result on the two latest betas.
Please forget the line about Pcaudit, I mixed up the leaktests :).
As for Pcflankleaktest Comodo didnt pass on my machine. The leaktest did send the text I wrote.
I did get a popup but I denied it to late coz the text (that I wrote in Pcflankleaktest) was sent while Comodo was waiting for an deny or allow answer from me.
My specs:
Windows XP Pro SP2 and all the latest hotfixes.
AMD Athlon64 x2
1024Mb RAM
This also what I am finding with CPF. Apart from failing the leaktests, I have pop ups occurring and before I have time to read them the connection has gone ahead anyway.
All testing is done with no other firewalls installed. I have a few extra drives in the main machine & often create a fresh new format/boot for troubleshooting purposes. Other times I will test multiple installations on a single install of Windows, but when I do this I use a very thorough method to clean the registry between installs. CCleaner > RegSeeker > jv16 PowerTools > WINASO, each run multiple times untill they turn up nothing more. Then after these 4 registry cleaners scrub for obvious errors (I’ve tested many registry cleaners & no others seem to ever turn anything up that these one’s don’t, hence I’ve developed this strategy to completely clean a registry, wish it could be accomplished from a single reg cleaner but each misses some that the others don’t) I go back through the registry manually & remove all remaining traces of a software & it’s parent company… often times it can actually be faster just to use a fresh format/windows install.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean about getting a popup later. Sometimes I get a popup at the time, it just isn’t blocking the leak. I don’t think I’ve ever had a popup occur late as another poster has mentioned, indeed that would be very odd behavior to get a popup regarding cpil 2 minutes afterward. In my case I believe it’s always popped up on time or not at all, but then there may have been times where I’ve rebooted before seeing a delayed popup, I usually reboot often between any of these types of tests to clear memory & get a fresh uncontaminated start on the next.
Ok I’ve tried some other versions again. I will present my findings in as concise & streamlined a manner as possible while still attempting to be entirely thorough. Some of these issues are seperate & preceed the failure of the leaktests, but I will include them in a quick rundown anyhow:
The latest version from the Comodo website does not install properly, 006 type error, problem with launchpad installing & such. I also get this with CAVS.
2.1.0.1 from download.com is installing correctly, but activation key does not work, error during activation type situation. Although 2.2.0.11 won’t install directly, after updating to 2.2.0.11 from 2.1.0.1, then I am able to activate the key. Ok, so at this point I’m thinking, although it was somewhat of a troublesome (from the average user’s perspective) & roundabout way of arriving here, I finally got a release version installed & maybe I can see the leak tests functionally blocked now.
I make sure to turn on all monitors manually, at least one of them was off by default, I believe it was component monitor. Then I go under the settings & make sure to check all things relevant such as block trojans or something as such & maybe there was one or 2 other things that weren’t checked by default, I didn’t take note of the precise names. This is on the old style where the settings are all one page rather than multiple pages as in the latest beta mind you.
This time, opposite as before, cpil did not yield a popup & pcflank did. I’m not sure if these characteristics can be exactly pinned down as to which way this occurs in which version, or if the firewall is just yielding varying inconsistent results in general which are not particular to a specific version or test.
4a) Needless to say, the cpil test with no popup failed & the test text was presented in the browser. However, I think it’s important to note that on previous tests with the beta a popup for cpil was being presented (at least sometimes), yet the presence of the popup alone or choice to deny cpil did not prevent the test text from being opened in the browser. So it’s not just a matter of whether the popup appears, it’s the coding that’s going on behind the scenes that is allowing the leak to occur even when the popup comes up as it should. Additionally, the popup continues to come up for other unrelated internet access untill the system is rebooted no matter how many times you hit deny. Possibly after some extended period of time it may desist, but I’ve never had the patience to wait it out for more than about 5 minutes as it quickly becomes incredibly annoying & a quick reboot always solves the problem.
4b) Now on to pcflank, which did yield a popup this time around. I believe there may be some consistency here within the inconsistency, as I recall similar experiences during previous tests within the last week. When pcflank does yield a popup, it seems to block the entire internet in general (or maybe it’s just the browser), however, it doesn’t seem to prevent the results page from being called up by copying & pasting the link to the browser, where the test text has indeed been leaked & is clearly visible. If not for copying & pasting the link directly at this step, one would get the impression here that the leak had been blocked. Also, the resulting persistent popup problem exists here too, only this time it is not only continually popping up for other unrelated internet access, it is blocking other unrelated internet access as well. Again, this bahavior continues untill the system is rebooted, or if there is a timer on it, I’ve never had the patience to wait it out as it quickly becomes not only annoying, but internet is unusable/unaccessible as well.
I often times tend to be overly complex or descriptive, I’m very analytical & redundant by nature, but I hope that was concise & articulated plainly enough to get a full picture of everything that is going on. I know sometimes reading what someone else is going through can make your head swim if you aren’t seeing or experiencing it in the first person.
And by the way, the screenshots I’ve listed in this thread aren’t posted at a real website or going to be part of any public display in anyway, I’ve just stuck them on an extra server for purposes of this thread. I may add a meta tag when I get time to stop the search engine spiders from indexing it, or just remove the files after this issue is resolved.
Hopefully I read every word in these four pages…
Did you turn on Component Control from Learning Mode to On?
Oh yeah, Avast opens some ports to use even when its shutdown.
