tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13777170.post4835411129279087230..comments2024-03-11T02:35:50.848-05:00Comments on grand stream dreams: This Week in Vista NewsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13777170.post-40266371469491790932008-01-14T16:51:00.000-06:002008-01-14T16:51:00.000-06:00Honestly, Guru, I really can't say (from a hand's-...Honestly, Guru, I really can't say (from a hand's-on perspective).<BR/><BR/>I used to use ZA for years when it was just about the only freeware firewall for Windows systems.<BR/><BR/>I stuck with it until about a year or two ago when it seemed to be getting more "bloated" and causing issues with a TOR-based browser.<BR/><BR/>I think the free version from ZA still just provides basic inbound/outbound firewall protection. From what I understand, if you enable the outbound "leakage" protection, you still get the semi-cryptic warnings about "do you want to allow..." with a process name.<BR/><BR/>Comodo provides one of the best "leak-proof" firewalls that I know of. It does a very good job preventing "leak-test" programs to bypass the firewall. Some users don't care about firewalling outbound network traffic, just inbound requests. The idea here is to prevent malware, were it to get on a system, from reaching the internet. Sounds good in principle.<BR/><BR/>Comodo also ships with something called Defense+ which supplements the network traffic firewall with monitoring of processes and internal process traffic back and forth. The idea here it to block malware-like activity on a system that might not be caught by traditional anti-malware/anti-virus solutions.<BR/><BR/>From my use of Comodo, I can say that I have been very impressed. It is truely a full-featured program. Defense+ protection seems to be pretty unobtrusive and you can disable it if you don't think you need it.<BR/><BR/>Also, I have found (compared to ZA or Sunbelt Personal Firewall/Kerio) that the alert messages are very well designed and very informative to helping you make a educated decision to allow a process action or network traffic connection. The color-codes help as well as the information provided in the alert is the best I have encountered.<BR/><BR/>Despite my frustration in dealing with the Vista updates failure in the previous release version, Comodo is by far the best personal firewall product I have seen or used.<BR/><BR/>Because it comes with and uses a "whitelist" of safe/approved applications, it cuts down on the popup alerts that are a bane of most users.<BR/><BR/>The "installation" mode allows you to temporarily let setup-program traffic and internal network monitoring get paused. That is a nice feature as sometimes installing a new program can overwhelm a user with tons of popup alerts and rule-setting requests.<BR/><BR/>If you don't need or want the outbound "leak" protection, you can install it in "simple-mode" at setup so it will only block unsolicited inbound traffic (like the XP/Vista firewall) but will not prompt you for every outbound network attempt.<BR/><BR/>Overall it is a very mature and well-designed product. I am very pleased with it and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a step up over the default XP/Vista firewalls.<BR/><BR/>Some fairly recent reviews here at Firewall Guide: <A HREF="http://www.firewallguide.com/software.htm" REL="nofollow">Personal Firewall Reviews</A>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13777170.post-22459367802676832652008-01-13T21:27:00.000-06:002008-01-13T21:27:00.000-06:00How does Comodo compare to Zone Alarm?How does Comodo compare to Zone Alarm?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com