pwnt.be

Okay, so I’ve been using Comodo Firewall Pro for a while, so it’s time for another one of my infamous roundups.
First off, I’m still really pleased at how little resources it seems to be eating. Granted, I’ve got a new motherboard, a new CPU and some faster RAM since when I was using Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall, but regardless, it does come across as far less of a resource hog.
That being said, now for some dissin’.
First of all, I’ll never get used to the application rule editor. Kerio’s packet filter is far more straightforward. To keep Windows Live Messenger from making outgoing HTTP connections, I had to create two rules: one to block port 80, and one to allow traffic on all ports but port 80. That’s just moronic. I want exceptions to rules.
Next up, if I turn off everything but the “Application Monitor” component, I don’t want the other components to appear, let alone run. The DLL list in the “Component Monitor” just keeps growing and growing, even though I’ve disabled it. Why is that?
On a related note, if I allow all actions for lighttpd.exe in the application monitor, I don’t want it to block incoming connections to Lighty. I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. I’m guessing Comodo doesn’t like Cygwin or something.
Finally, I don’t like the way they’ve pushed back the version 3 beta twice now. Granted, it’s probably not an easy thing to code, and I appreciate that they admit that they’re behind on schedule rather than releasing an unfinished build, but they should have anticipated that. I’m not going to use firewall software that’s still in beta, but I’d sure like to know when we can expect the final version. And if it will have a decent packet filter.
That being said, it’s still a pretty nice product, and I’m going to keep using it.