Hi, I just installed CPF and everything seems to be working fine. I’ve got a d-link router that has a hardware firewall. I’ve used this for years without a software firewall without any problems. I’ve read that hardware firewalls are supposed to be sufficient. My question is do I really need CPF? ;D
Your router firewall is useful for filtering incoming packets. It can only replace the network monitor part of CPF. You still need applicaion based access control.
I am sure you know about spyware, trojans etc.
What do they do? They make calls to Internet!
So my question to you would be: How do you know who is making what call from machine to where?
How do you keep track of who is making what calls, how are you making sure that there isn’t a software/spyware/trojan in your machine silently making calls to Internet?
Once you answered the above questions, you will have answered the question you have asked about why you need CPF.
Personal firewall is not just about stopping hackers from outside. Its also giving you visibility about your network activity and give you control of it so that things cannot make calls without your consent!
Its like people living in your house, that you don’t know of, and they keep making international calls using your phone! its unacceptable in the real world, right! Why should it be acceptable in the virtual world! So how can you get visibility and control of this situation in the virtual world ie: Your PC? The answer is CPF!
Melih
Hi, here is one persons view on software firewalls [url]http://www.samspade.org/d/firewalls.html[/url]. I would like to hear others thoughts on this please. 
Out of date and out of touch!
Let me explain:
this is the quote from the article:
“(Maybe it’ll block trojans from phoning home, but A) if you’ve run a trojan your system is completely compromised and B) Cyberpunks.Org - Technology, Privacy, Security, and the Future).”
You will notice that the reason why the author calls the Personal Firewall’s useless is cos he claims they “leak” and it points to GRC basic leak tests (from year 2000) as the evidence! So on this note, if the firewall passes all these leak tests, it has a great value! The author’s argument solely based upon his assumption that personal firewalls fail leak tests! well CPF do not fail Leak tests!
Also if you have trojan, would you not rather not be aware that its there!? I would! and if AV/AntiSpyware fails to detect it cos they don’t have the latest signature and your Personal Firewall detects it cos it controls all the network activity, then surely this is a good thing.
and Comodo CPF passes all the leak tests hence it has a great value!
If i remember correctly there was a posting in the forums about how CPF was alerting the user to a spwyare/trojans that all other anti-spyware/anti-virus programs failed to detect, but CPF cought it!
So if you think you need to be in control of your network activity then you have to get your hands on a Personal Software that does not fail the leak tests so that it can give you full visibility of your network activity!
Melih