I am a new user of COMODO firewall and of this forum. The reason I started using COMODO was that after 10 years (approx) of using Zone Alarm I got tired of it. Each release of Zone Alarm went more and more bloated and slowed by computer right down by using 100% of the processor at times. (I’ve had various PCs, but slowing down a 3.2GHz processor is a bit mad). The interface changed which made it difficult to use and I found I could no longer rely on it. Various problems appeared with the latest release, including the traffic monitor vanishing and I lost all confidence in the firewall after contacting Checkpoint. It was a case of “it does work” and me showing it doesn’t - with screenshots!!!
After searching a few nights ago for hours, reading reviews, looking at what people thought etc, I loaded up Comodo Free Firewall and was amazed at the features. It appears you can use it as a beginner in automatic mode and let it make all the sensible choices - or for the more experienced user, you can adjust quite a lot of things to tune it exactly how you want it. For me the experienced setting is better as I can have a play and look at the extra features other products don’t even have. There is even a paranoid mode and stop all traffic mode. They are good if you think something is happening when it shouldn’t!
Comodo is clearly set out and each group of settings are under one tab. It also protects my computer as I have battered it with firewall test sites after switching off my router frewall. It’s great!
I started using Comodo Firewall back in the days of CFP 3.0 alpha as I was looking for a Vista compatible free firewall solution. CFP was along with Jetico the only free version I think. I got intrigued by what it was all keeping an eye an on. The rest is history. (I just checked, I joined June 14 2007).
CIS does have a learning curve, but gotten less over time, but once used to it it is a cool program to use. When I started using the 3.o alpha it would forget its rules every couple of days… that was an interesting learning experience… 8)
I started using it I think when it was version 2.4 or 2.0 I don’t remember exactly, but since then I have been infection free. Before that I was using just avast and it let an infection in, the only thing that stopped it was it asking me if I wanted this program to have internet access. It was so new that google didn’t even have it listed as anything, a few days later the results in google went over 15K. That is also when I stopped using avast.
I concur with v105, myself also being an ex ZA-er. ;D ZA was a blessing when I started using it 10 or more years ago, still on a dial-up. It was quite a revelation back then to see all sorts of things that got caught in the firewall afterwards (and going, how could we ever lived without it before). Anyhow, years went by, and ZA was lagging behind - especially after having been acquired by Checkpoint. I tried a few other options every now and then, but none of them was convincing enough for me to quit ZA completely. A few months ago I updated to ZA v10, which promised improvements, but it seemed like a very bad joke, so I went back to the latest v9 promptly, and realized they aren’t going anywhere and I’d have to look into other options, this time for good. Eventually I came across Comodo, which - this time around - was way better than when I first encountered it. I decided to stick with it; the rest is history.
My only fear is that the way things work in the human universe, Comodo may one day be sold to a giant corporation, and it will only go down afterwards (as it’s been the case with many other decent product/solutions).
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