Sunday, January 20, 2008

Do Not Rely on Comodo 3’s ‘Basic Firewall’

I certainly am glad that I realized something was wrong with my RSS feed for Scot's Newsletter Blog or I may have missed passing along this important information. As Scot reported today:

"I have learned directly from Comodo executives that the Basic Firewall installation option of Comodo 3 does not offer any outbound leak protection whatsoever. They may add that protection in a future version of Comodo 3.x. The Basic Firewall option turns off Comodo 3’s Defense+ HIPS module, which provides the leak protection for Comodo 3.

The previous generation of the Comodo 2.4 provided anti-leak protection without the HIPS.

Not only does this mean that Comodo 3 Basic Firewall is no longer a contender in this blog’s firewall evaluation, but if you are relying on this version of Comodo for your firewall protection, Windows XP users should switch to Online Armor FREE version 2.1.0.31 (or newer) and Vista users should uninstall Comodo 3 and reinstall it, choosing the “Advanced” installation option."

In an earlier post, Scot reported that Online Armor Firewall Shows Strong Promise. Online Armor isn't ready for Windows Vista yet. See Windows Vista Compatible Firewalls for links to free and subscription Vista compatible firewalls.

24Jan08 Edit Note: See Comodo Firewall Update



Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an employee of Comodo, we are working hard to make the best security solutions out there, bar none. The post from Scot had some incorrect assumptions including the erroneous belief that in certain installation modes, Comodo Firewall Pro does not have outbound protection – when in fact it does. It is worth repeating -- Comodo Firewall Pro does provide outbound protection in all installation modes. Scot’s assertion that it did not to have outbound protection is a serious accusation. We are anxious to correct this misperception as misinformation can lead to the wrong conclusions.

Melih Abdulhayoglu, Comodo CEO explained his position regarding Scot’s post in the Comodo Forum http://forums.comodo.com/feedbackcommentsannouncementsnews/feedback_cfp_3_basic_installation_merged-t18598.0.html;msg128025#msg128025

At Comodo a point of pride is that fact that we are open to feedback. Good and bad. There is no small irony to the fact that this “basic” firewall installation mode which caused all confusion was a last minute addition because users wanted that option. We will continue to respond to our users because that is what ultimately creates the most brilliant solutions. That’s as it should be.

Judy Shapiro

Corrine said...

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Shapiro.

Note to Security Garden Readers: Judy Shapiro is Vice President of Marketing for Comodo.

Scot wrote a follow up post entitled, "Comodo’s CEO Attacks Scot’s Newsletter Product Decision", dated 22Jan08 at http://blog.scotsnewsletter.com/.