First Impressions CPF

I have been watching the progress of CPF for the best part of a year, finally taking the plunge to install it (replacing Look n Stop) recently.

My needs are not as an inveterate tinkerer, but as somebody who wants to feel he is “belt & braces” protected on a largely “set & forget it” basis. In other words non technical, but always searching for a better protection solution.

MY first impressions:

CPF is noisy. I mean by this there are a lot of pop ups compared to L n S & kerio, irritatingly so.

CPF IS STILL resource hogging by comparison to many firewalls.

Is it truly “set & forget”, not really because of the number of pop ups and the need to be able understand how to respond to them. (Still more work to do here). I know you can adjust the number of pop ups in CPF. However I do not like to go away from default settings since presumably CPF knows better than me.

One thing I cannot reconcile about CPF, and maybe someone can help me here, is that on default installation effectively CPF is in “learning mode” yet the protection strength is said to be Excellent.

This is contrary to any other software of this type, firewalls, HIPS etc. Just look at Process Guard, or Neoava Guard, all issue warnings of diminished or non existent protection. So how can Comodo achieve this apparent contradiction of Excellent protection on permanent Learning mode?

Indeed, I think the jump from learing mode to something more robust is too high for most people like me, and perhaps this is an area that needs addressing.

Overall I like Comodo (principally because it is free) the choice would be much harder if all firewalls were on a paid basis. This suggests that Comodo have not yet fully found the market differentiation (apart from price) that will draw newbies and techies in equal numbers.

Hope this is helpful.

Terry

Hi and welcome to the forums! I will throw a few statements into your statements in hopes to explain and in no way do I mean offense or defense here… :slight_smile:

1.] CPF is noisy. I mean by this there are a lot of pop ups compared to L n S & kerio, irritatingly so.

There are settings to avoid too many pop ups. I too used Kerio and would have to click 4 times in a row to get something allowed but like CPF it did have a setting to not get so many.

2.]CPF IS STILL resource hogging by comparison to many firewalls.

I would disagree. ZA took way more resources, starting time, and over all resources. Kerio was approximately the same, acutally a tad higher and noticed no running issues with either it or CPF. I run two low end pcs right now, one Athlon, 850 MHz, 256 RAM running XP pro, lol <yes very slow, but CPF was the only firewall that had no ill effect. But I suppose it depends on other softwares, etc…and others have mentioned this as well. What do you use that shows you the resource usage? Do you mean CPU? RAM?

3]. Is it truly “set & forget”, not really because of the number of pop ups and the need to be able understand how to respond to them. (Still more work to do here). I know you can adjust the number of pop ups in CPF. However I do not like to go away from default settings since presumably CPF knows better than me.

It is not a setting for CPF “knowing better” it is for those who don’t know better. Some people don’t know how to set any settings in a firewall whatsoever and default is the best route for them in order to obtain the best possible safe connection without user intervention. You can “as you said” adjust the settings. It’s a simple slider based setting so no foul ups. :wink:

4.]One thing I cannot reconcile about CPF, and maybe someone can help me here, is that on default installation effectively CPF is in “learning mode” yet the protection strength is said to be Excellent.

Learning is just that, it learns which applications and such are allowed , I believe by the user, and learns eventually what to allow or not allow by either a known safe application or number of times allowed. I have gone through my component monitor and there isn’t anything allowed that I wouldn’t allow. I too felt the same at first which is why I kept an eye out for this.

5.]This is contrary to any other software of this type, firewalls, HIPS etc. Just look at Process Guard, or Neoava Guard, all issue warnings of diminished or non existent protection. So how can Comodo achieve this apparent contradiction of Excellent protection on permanent Learning mode?

Applications aren’t accessing the internet until learned , deemed as safe until a user allows things to be let through. As well, in default auto install, CPF passes all leak tests. ;D <good news for many of us. I use default settings even though I can set them manually. Why? Because I have gone over the settings and I haven’t had anything leave or get through that wasn’t supposed to.

Overall I like Comodo (principally because it is free) the choice would be much harder if all firewalls were on a paid basis. This suggests that Comodo have not yet fully found the market differentiation (apart from price) that will draw newbies and techies in equal numbers.

Actually Comodo is growing very rapidly and becoming the number one firewall on many sites. Melih could give you a better understanding of this than I can.

Either way, I hope I helped a bit and would like to thank you for the comments and questions. Very insightful. :slight_smile: If my answers are a bit off, i’ts very late here so i’m half asleep and will apologize if I misundertood any statements. Now I can go to bed so I don’t fall asleep on my keyboard again, lol.

Take care,

Paul

Thanks for you courteous & considered response.

I still stand by my comments - CPF is overweight in resource useage. You did not refer to L n S as I did in my commentary or for that matter Jetico et al.

Lets be clear Comodo is doing a good job. BUT, by definition is not all things to all men. It simply cannot be. I worry that that the close “sympatico” with a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) clouds the vision of some people. We hear a lot of “CEO appreciation”. Nothing wrong with that, if its kept in proportion.

Comodo are hopefully beginning to shake up the security world. At this moment not at earthquake momentum for the reasons I gave in my previous post.

Otherwise by definition there would be no competition left if Comodo was so completely in control (and I want them to be). I just wonder when the mutual admiration society is going to change to one of considered practicality.

That is, Comodo have a business model which suits them. AND them alone!!

Regards

Terry

ps not intended to be inflamatory just genuinely reflective

Hi, the reason I didn’t refer to Jetico or another is because that would be clouding my honesty as I haven’t used them. What I mean to be more precise is that some state it has higher usage while others don’t notice the usage at all. As stated, on such an old machine as my AMD Athlon, it doesn’t even dent the usage but I do understand that others do experience this. I don’t have an answer as to why unfortunately, it may be certain programs in combinations, I truly don’t know.

And I do agree that not everyone is going to like CPF , everyone has different likes\dislikes, that’s the way it should be. I don’t think the CEO appreciation is so much clouding vision as it is the CEO is trying to build the best programs from user’s ideas and this is what draws many in as it did me. They take into consideration what the user wants and tries to level out multiple requests but keep within reason and create something everyone wants.

Comodo is shaking the security world as many other companies\websites fought tooth and nail against requests to put Comodo on as a firwall, tried to debunk Comodo’s intentions, ultimately to find it was for naught. Melih was straight up honest about the how’s and why’s and this led to some caving in and admitting their ill thought ideas.

As much as I would like to see Comodo become number 1 in all manners of security, i’m not sure complete control for any company is a good thing. I think competition is good. So my hopes would be to see Comodo rise to the top but still have competition out there in order to keep striving forward.

In no way was your post flaming. You said your part in an extremely well mannered tone and yet got your opinion accross. If more posts were like yours, there would be a lot less waste when it comes to politely arguing points on the forum. :slight_smile: Thank you for that.

Paul

Why couldn’t business model benefit both parties? I totally believe a mutually beneficial business plan will benefit the company much better in the long term. So, everything we do is designed to benefit our users as we know in the long term this will benefit us. It already started working… pls look at this
http://www.google.com/trends?q=comodo%2Cverisign&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2006

We already become the most sought after CA in the world, thanks to you guys. This helped our Digital certificate business as our main competitor Verisign has a brand that is not as much sought after as Comodo’s. Now people want to put Comodo name on their website because they know end users trust the name of Comodo.

you are seeing a living proof of ingenuis, mutually benefical business/marketing model where everyone wins :wink:

Melih

I’m pleased I did not upset the forum with my comments. Genuinely said and meant.

As I said at the outset I am no Techie so my interests apart from being “selfish” are aimed at ease of use with maximum protection. So when I observed that Comodo was “noisy” and used a lot of resources I meant it. I think the default setting for pop ups is too high. When Comodo is used in conjunction with say other HIPS programs (AntiHook for one) the number of pop ups becomes astronomical. I don’t know whether this is a comodo issue or Antihook. But, If I use for example L n S with HIPS programs the “noise” pop ups is much much less.

So why don’t I turn down the volume some might say (from the default pop up setting). I might be prepared to do this if I understood why Comodo felt it needed such a high default setting in the first place. I remain nervous about changing defaults about which I know little.

Some also might say don’t whinge about Comodo and return to L n S. My answer is of course that Comodo is being actively developed and is not a one man band, and apart from being free Comodo perhaps can learn from constructive comment.

Turning to my comment about high resource useage. If you have a high spec computer my comments are irrelevant to that group of people. Those that don’t, and there are many, have to husband very carefully their resources or the PC grinds on very slowly. How does this affect Comodo. Well, if Comodos business model is to attract as many people as it can then it may miss a large tranche of potential users because of high resource useage. There are many forum comments that I see (Comodo and others) that suggest resource useage is still a problem with Comodos firewall.

In addition if L n S, Jetico and some others can produce low resource products, is this not a challenge for Comodo. It could imply programming for “goodies” ie features rather than efficiency.

So maybe I am not so selfish after all maybe there is a business case for lower resource useage and “install & forget” as well as “tweakability” for the techies

regards

Terry

Another LnS, Comodo and now LnS user again here.

LnS is lighter, and not just with very old systems. It’s noticable with my P4, 512mb ram.
I don’t know why, but the system feels more responsive. And that includes browsing. I started a post here sometime ago, saying that cfosspeed wasn’t working with Comodo, but the problem may have been something else (Comodo itself).

Why do you use a firewall?

Melih

Now, that’s a kickin’ question! (:CLP)

Anyway… I believe CPF is far more “silent” since it’s first installment.
And if you find CPF+other HIPS program = “astronomically noisy” thing, then it’s not CPF’s fault I believe.

I used to be the number one complainer about their pop-up, but turns to a happier bunny since the 2.3 installment.

…and to top it all, you guys need to re-read Melih’s question; again, and again, and again…

*. Security comes first in CPF.

Security software in general can only keep it so small , yet be a GOOD software. Sure, Comodo can strip down many things and leave us with a cheap product that won’t pass a leak test if you glued it. This is unfortunate but the way it has to be I think. As I stated before, I run CPF on an AMD with 256 MB ram and 850 mhz processor, no problems at all. What I mean here is, for what Comodo protects against, even if there was a bit of slow down, it would be well worth the security. The other point, some complain that they want less out of CPF , some want more. Where does this leave Melih? Stuck in the middle trying to accomodate both. I am not shunning anyone’s opinion here, not my intent at all but merely trying to point out variables that others may not think of. And to add, let’s keep one thing in sight. It’s really not security software’s fault, >except Norton> that the software is taking more room and resources on anyone’s pc. Let’s blame the ones who keep putting out the filth that polutes our rights to have freedom on our computers and internet. I wonder with this slow down if there is a common ground for some. Why doesn’t everyone experience this? The other machine I use has 384 MB ram 1.2 g processor, HP junk yet CPF doesn’ t affect it either. So on some computers, there must be a common issue\combination or perhaps more than one common that is causing a slowdown. Ok wisanggeni, go find it! lol.

Paul

…aside from you Mother in Law, Paul; I’ve found nothing to be afraid of. [J/K] ;D

By the way…
Here in Indonesia, I can assure you that you can find thousand and thousand more computer hardware configuration than you could ever imagine. In Jakarta, Indonesia, almost everyone (that can operate a PC) can build their own PC. Why? It’s just so common and quite cheap hardware heaven here. …not to mention the software piracy too…

Anyhow…
You don’t find an HP or a decent IBM here in most places, rather a lot of ASUS, ECS, GYGABITE, PC-LINK, JETWAY, ASROCK, ZYREX, or a lot more weird names you guys never know off.
…and because shared computer is a common here, you bet I’ve seen CPF ROCKS in a lot of this configuration, from the so-called “high-end” type to the low-budget dork, and it’s working like a charm and beat the ■■■■ out of it!
…ok I think I’m getting overjoyed here, but at least, that’ll show you guys a “freakin’” picture from my home town.
There’s still a lot of PENTIUM-III 500MHz or Celeron runing around the business district, and I’ve put CPF on them a lots of time. Either by share it to a friend, a client, or even on my Mother in Law’s PC, they runs fine.

With it’s fine and secure system, I think CPF’s “noise level”, is still the best in my standard.