Comodo Firewall 6.2 UI Still Needs Improvements

Comodo Internet Security - CIS News / Announcements / Feedback - CIS
1

After it was announced that V6.2 had some UI changes I decided to install it and give it another go. Although the new summary screen is a welcome addition, V6 could still do with some improvements, which to me seem like just logical/basic UI design.

When opening Comodo windows in full screen mode (On Win 7 upwards dragging the window to the top of the monitor you want it to display full screen on), if your task bar is set to Auto-hide it isn’t possible to access the taskbar anymore by moving your mouse to the bottom of the screen to show it.

When using the mouse scroll wheel in Application rules, etc. it scrolls too much at a time. One mouse wheel position jumps half a page at a time, so I have to resort to the old fashioned way of dragging the scroll bar.

I’ve attached some screen shots to show the following, as it’s easier to see it on a screenshot, but here’s a summary:

Firewall alerts (Pic 01):
When you click on the application name in a Firewall Alert, the properties dialogue box appears behind the alert box completely hiding it from view. You have to drag the alert box out of the way in order to see it.

Application rules, Network Zones and Port Sets (Pic 02):
If you expand application rules, when you exit and re-enter they are all collapsed again
There is no way to expand all/collapse all rules like you could in V5 (by clicking on the top bar)
If you adjust the column widths, when you exit and re-enter the column widths aren’t remembered and go back to default

Network Zones and Port Sets (Pic 03, Pic 04):
It’s not possible to re-arrange Network Zones and Port Sets. New Zones/Portsets are just added to the bottom of the list with no way of moving or re-arranging them

Log Files (Pic 05):
If you adjust the column widths, when you exit and re-enter the column widths aren’t remembered and go back to default

ARP Log Events:
There doesn’t appear to be a way to disable logging of blocked ARP requests (see last screenshot of firewall logs (Pic 05) for an example).

So, all in all I don’t hate V6.2, it’s just annoying that such basic things have been over-looked and ‘looking pretty’ seems to have become more important than functionality. Apart from that, I quite like it.

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2

On the plus side, whilst randomly trying different keyboard combinations to try and find a way to re-organise my Network Zones/Portset lists, I discovered if you press and hold the ALT key for 2 seconds, it shows you all the keyboard shortcuts available. (Although unfortunately ALT + U and ALT + D only move items up/down in Applications Rules & Global Rules, they don’t work in Rulesets, Network Zones and Portsets).

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3

I agree with the first picture with the alert. I find that annoying. The other suggestions are interesting as well.

4

Another thing to add. When adding IP addresses to Network Zones, it’s no longer possible to copy and paste IP addresses because it uses a 000.000.000.000 format. This formatting messes up any IP addresses where part of the IP address is less than three digits, which therefore means having to type the addresses manually.

For example, pasting 2.18.64.0 into the field becomes 218.640.000.000.

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5

Hi All,

Would be good if OP’s could raise each point as a wishlist item under Comodo Forum

Follow guidelines https://forums.comodo.com/wishlist-cis/important-wishlist-guideline-t31945.0.html & https://forums.comodo.com/wishlist-cis/important-please-post-one-wish-per-post-t29300.0.html when posting.

Regards

6

It’s not a wishlist, it’s user feedback on features that are already included in CIS.

7

Also I would add:

In any of the grids , when you are about to resize a column (the cursor is changed to an horizontal double headed arrow), if instead of dragging you double-click, nothing happens. The standard behavior (which usually doesn’t even require programming, as most grid components have this implemented by default) is that the column should resize , being able to show the whole value of the longest item inside that column… so this would be a nice feature to have.

8

Well, 6.3.294583.2937 now seems to remember the column widths you set in ‘View Logs’ and ‘Application Rules’ and it also doesn’t appear to be logging ARP requests where the source and destination IP’s are the same anymore.

Hopefully the rest will be sorted out in the next release… Especially being able to re-arrange ‘Network Zones’ and ‘Port Sets’ and also being able to paste IP addresses in the ‘Network Zones’ dialogue box, as it’s just a nightmare as it is. I’m still on V5 on my other PC and it really is a bliss to use in comparison.