Since I hadn’t used CIS since v5.3 and just recently returned with v6, I decided to see what v5.12 was really like. I don’t use my older XP laptop very much so that was the test bed. I completely uninstalled v6 and ran CCleaner’s registry cleaner as well as the Auslogics Registry Cleaner before installing v5.12. My impressions follow.
With pretty much the same settings, (Internet Security config with notifications turned on for the firewall and AV, D+ set to Untrusted, firewall and D+ in Safe mode) the 2 versions work almost identically and remain totally silent for known safe things. They also work pretty much the same for unknown things. As far as the UI’s go, I actually prefer the one of v6 which just seems more modern and uncluttered. The addition of the task bar makes it, in my opinion, easier to access the settings of the various modules if you just add the advanced settings icon. The summary screen of 5.12 to me is obtrusive and you can see the same details in v6 by looking at the logs. The only thing missing from v6 is the real time connection info of the firewall. This is okay to see but has to use resources that are not being used by v6.
The computer also definitely was more responsive with v6 with all programs opening noticeably faster.
When they add the requested elements of the UI into v6, I hope they do not put a summary screen as the first thing you see but rather as a clickable viewing option. I like the current opening UI of v6 except for the pretty much useless drag and drop box.
A problem that I had with 5.3 on XP is still present in 5.12. The CIS icon does not show up in the system tray at boot and I have to open the UI from the desktop icon to make the system tray one show up. I had resolved this previously by using a utility called StartupDelay and delaying the loading of the CIS UI by a few seconds. This is a problem common to XP that was never fixed where some things will not show in the system tray if too many things are trying to load at the same time.
My impression of 5.12 is that I would have found it usable but that I would not have returned to CIS from Avast Internet Security even though CIS is free. Why is that? The answer is that the only reason I was paying for Avast was because of it’s Safe Zone feature which isolates a browser from the system and makes banking and shopping much safer. The Kiosk of v6 is pretty much the same thing so now I have the same added protection for the more sensitive things without having to pay for it.
I’m going to keep 5.12 on the XP machine and see what happens when the auto-update to v6 goes live.
If the GUI of CIS 6 is what is considered modern, then I am ashamed of living in this time and age. Of course that is just my personal opinion and in my opinion the GUI of CIS 5.12 is so much better than the GUI of CIS 6 but again that is just my opinion. It feels like we’ve (not only you and me) gone through this so many times in so many threads. ^-^‘’
The differences are not that large and I feel they can be compared. The biggest change in 6 is the addition of the Kiosk and the default “disabling” of HIPS which is now the underlying backbone of the Behavior Blocker.
As far as the Bond references, having read all the novels as a teenager, Daniel Craig will never fit as a true Bond for me. Bond has black hair and a craggy face in the books. I also don’t like the way they changed so many things around like having M be a woman. It would be okay in totally new stories but not in an inaccurate rehash of Bond’s beginnings which the first two movies with Craig were. To me the movie Bond who was closest to the Bond of the novels was Timothy Dalton.
Who says I don’t use the UI? Read my original post again where I state that with a few exceptions, I prefer the new one. If you put Advanced settings in the Taskbar, it’s actually easier to get to them than in 5.12.
Sure I said that it was my view. You not wrong in doing it. True. That’s what I mean by Daniel Craig… Ppl love him or hate him as Bond so the same goes for CIS 6 LOL! For me Daniel Craig can’t be a classic Bond but I can’t imagine a better modern one. Society has changed… So is the taste…
I must be in the minority as I hated the version 5 interface, I think version 6 is amazing! The devs must feel let down by their work, which must have taken a long-time
Almost all the complaints are from long time CIS users who were used to doing things a certain way and v6 was a shock. You can still get to the Advanced settings pretty easily and the only thing really missing is the summary screen which to me is kind of out of place as the initial thing you see. I hope when they add it in as promised that it is an optional view and not the default one. It could maybe be added to what you see when you click on the word Active or (to me) less desirable, take the place of the pretty much useless drag and drop box.
I too have sympathy for the developers who have created an amazing piece of work in v6.
It’s the same here but it is a known quirk of XP that was never fixed. The only Icons that will normally show in my XP system tray are the Internet connection one, the volume control one, and the power management one since I use a laptop. With 5.12 installed, not only does the CIS icon not show up, the power and volume ones don’t either. When v6 was installed on the same machine, they were all present. I can make the CIS icon show up by letting the Comodo splash screen display at boot but that’s annoying.
I’m not certain of this and I generally don’t have a lot of knowledge when it comes to Windows XP, but usually when I have killed explorer.exe and then started it again, most icons would be gone. I assume this is because explorer can’t show things that has been initialized before the explorer.exe process.
Could it perhaps be that the services initialize before the explorer.exe process? That would explain why delaying the initialization of CIS works, however I don’t know if Comodo would be able to fix that without actually delaying the initialization of CIS.
I assume they made the explorer.exe process start earlier in later Windows versions.
Isn’t the default taskbar option to only show icons of active applications? My volume icon is almost always hidden (as well as a few other things) because I don’t ever touch it.
Even so, you can change the settings to always show inactive icons if you wish. Have you tried setting the CIS icon to always show?
The volume icon has an option in the sound control mixer panel to show the icon or not. Even with the option selected, it does not always show up. The CIS icon automatically gets set to always show but usually will not. Like I said, it is a known quirk in XP that was reported from it’s beginnings and was never fixed. If you somehow control the timing of loading at boot time, that is the only known way to avoid the issue without disabling certain services or logging in and out.
