My “tech guy” at the university swears by Black Ice as the ultimate bullet-proof protection. He says CPF is good but then I’ve read all this HIPS stuff about Black Ice. What does Black Ice have that Comodo doesn’t (other than a hefty price tag – $110 for my three personal computers!). The article on Black Ice was part of a general feature on new security threats through devices (like wireless) rather than through the OS.
Professional opinion:
Trying to identify what firewall is “better” is very subjective to what the user likes and how the firewall interacts with other programs.
COMODO Firewall are going to introduce HIPS in the future, at the present COMODO Firewall does not have HIPS.
My suggestion on this topic to to download COMODO Firewall and try it and see how it goes. Then download BlackIce Firewall trial and see how it goes. If you have problems (With COMODO Firewall) post here and we will help you through them.
Uninstall COMODO Firewall before installing BlackIce firewall !!.
Personal opinion:
COMODO Firewall is a VERY strong firewall, BlackIce Firewall i don’t like and generally don’t recommend. My reasons are based on their past problems with handling issues that are raised with their firewall (www.grc.com) has a good example of that.
Previous actions tend to predict future actions i reckon (-: .
Good advice from Rotty - different Firewalls suit different people and even different pc’s. I know some people who swear by Black Ice, some who have had problems with it. The same applies to CPF.
Your best bet is to try both and see which works best for you. It may be that you pick the one easiest for you to use or the one that you feel gives the best protection. If you like both then the obvious choice would be CPF as it is free and the support is great.
Personally I prefer CPF and have had no problems since I first began using it several months ago.
:SMLR
The HIPS stuff is part of Comodo Antivirus 2.0.7.14
Harry
Also, check out link below to compare how each firewall performed against a range of leak tests.
http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php
I was thinking that if they were as good as each other in the OP’s opinion. I gathered he would take the “wallet friendly” choice :■■■■ . ($110 is a fair bit of ■■■■ ;D)
Perhaps backup any important data before testing the firewalls too, it is VERY VERY unlikely something could go wrong but it can happen and to be honest, an extra backup a year won’t hurt anyway !!.
Forgot where HIPS was going to be implemented, thanks for the correction 
I am only replying to Rotty’s post for one reason instead of a separate post. >I believe HIPS will be in CFP as well eventually unless it was decided against since I last heard.
If you want HIPS protection, it’ s becoming wide spread and fairly easy to find for the time being. I will say this, CFP is free. It passes all leak tests, has many great features and oh yeah, it’s free. I understand Free isn’t always what someone wants, not when it comes to protection but I can say, CFP is awesome and has blocked every possible intrusion on my system. And does pretty much what Black ice claims as well.
That said, I haven’t heard many bad things about Black Ice either and that it does a great job too. While I did use it a while back, a trial of some sort, it was good. I didn’t care for the interface too much and decided to move on. As stated above, it wasn’t for me but it may be for you.
My honest personal opinion is this, both CFP and BI are in very close ties. Black Ice does a great job, but to me it slows down my connections too much. CFP doesn’t do this to me. CFP has full upgrades for life, never have to buy it. Black Ice you do but compared to ZA and others, if I did pay for a firewall, it would be Black Ice over the others. Well Kerio isn’t bad either but the interface is very scattered and it slowed my pc down a lot but did run smooth. Kerio does have a free limited version after the trial of full.
I like security as much as the next guy, but if like Kerio,I can no longer have fun on my pc. To me , protection is important but not if my PC becomes so much that I can’t use it.
So all in all, this is my view and of course I have been using Comodo for a while now and my vote goes to them STILL. Not playing favorites just being honest. Black ICE second, Kerio third, all in betweens and then LAST>ZA< my nightmare.
Paul