Comodo Free Firewall vs Outpost Free Firewall

Hi all,

Q1: Which of the two would you choose? Why?

Q2: Would you recommend not to use any of these two? Why? What would you recommend?

I didn't really find quite enough information to decide between the comodo free and outpost free firewalls.

They both seem to be pretty damn good, but is there anything that would make you recommend one over the other?

I am only intending to use them as a firewall (as in, not bundle with / make use of any other functionality), and only planning on using the free versions.

THANKS!

Matt

 

Maybe I can simplify the question:

Are there any particular things that the one does better than the other?

Cheers,

Matt

 

Comodo has much more functionality than the outpost, because the free version of the comodo is the only version that they have, and there is no pro edition. However Outpost Free is the limited edition of the outpost pro.

 

That's interesting.

A) Does that mean that the (always free) Comodo provides about the same performance and functionality that the pay version of Outpost provides?

If so: How can that be? One would think that if that was the case, no one would ever pay anything for the pro version of Outpost.


B) Or did you actually mean that Comodo is a lot better than Outpost Free; but the pay version of Outpost might still be better?

If that is the case, what does the pay version of Outpost do better than Comodo?


C) Just out of interest: Is there a significant security difference between Comodo and Outpost Pro?


I hope this isn't getting too annoying. Thanks heaps for your help!

Matt

 

What does the default deny protection of Comodo Firewall mean? Does it mean that if the application in question is on their "whitelist", it allows without prompting me to ok it beforehand??

If so, can that feature be switched off, forcing the firewall to always ask me first?

Not so sure if that feature is such a great idea. Sure makes things easier for the user, but I'd prefer to decide based on the context of what I am doing at the time whether that application should even ask for access, or if something dodgy is going on.

Matt

 

Sorry, another question just came to mind:

Does anyone know how the antivirus of Comodo compares in effectiveness with Avira Antivir?

Matt

 

This may be of some interest to you as far as the two programs configurations, along with detailed explanations of the questions you have been asking.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-firewall.htm

 

Thats a nice link also check the features of the comodo and the features of the outpost free.

 

@mimon:

Thanks! Now I will just have to find the time to read even more information... which I will. I guess I can always sleep when I'm dead.


@BoneXXX:

Will do.

Cheers,

Matt

 

I was going to Champion Online Armour's free edition. Im going back a few years but I know it out performed many paid solutions and scored the best in the leak tests. I personally found I got less popups from Online Armour as it seems to use a database of known "safe" programmes to decide itself whether access should be aloud. Personally I dont use a software firewall as My router has a hardware firewall built in and I pass all tests on the ShieldUp scanner (which you can find and use to test your system here). Unless you have a need for programme control internally on you LAN I see no need for one.

In terms of AV, I have kept a little more up to date with this side. I used Avira for years but in recent studies Avira lost points as it is more prone to providing false detections (also the popup really annoys me). Avast came out as the best all rounder but there has been a lot of praise over Microsoft Security Essentials lately (Yes I AM recomending an MS product!!!). AVG is popular but has become a tad bloated over recent years.

 

@Tueur:

Thanks for the detailed suggestions!

Q: Do you know if Online Armour Free still is that good? A lot can change in a few years on that front. Will check it out in any case.

I'm not bothered by many pop ups from my firewall at all, especially in the first few days. I much prefer to make my own choice rather than leaving it to the firewall. I have very mixed feelings about all features that aim to minimise that user input effort; they are well meant, but I am not sure if I can trust them all to do the job the way I would want them to do it - since they are not asking me, they can't know what I want. So many pop ups from the firewall are rather a plus in my book.

I do indeed need the firewall also for program control, internally and externally.

Q: I was wondering that about Avira; how bad is it? I have had no worries with Avira for over a year now, no false positives either. Also, I'd rather have a few false positives than something slip through, if I have to choose between these two options.

The pop up ad is annoying, but I think there are ways to get rid of it. Just couldn't be bothered to do that yet.

Will consider Avast and MS Security Essentials as well, although I must admit that it would have to be extremely (!) convincing for me to switch to a MS product.

(There is already hardly anything left on my computers that is from MS, and I'm only sticking with a MS operating system because a lot of software that I need to use requires windows - and I simply can't be bothered and don't have the time to run and use two OS parallel and switch between the two all the time.)

Q: I have not read so many great things about AVG recently, am I misinformed? It used to be great a couple years ago or so, and I was using it, but switched to Avira because it clearly outperformed AVG at some point.

Cheers,

Matt

 

Online armour is discussed in Mimon's post so I would suggest having a read through that. As you say a lot can change in a couple of years. As I say I haven't used a software firewall for several years so may not be best placed to advise. My understanding is that the software doesn't "decide" what to allow and restrict but rather records other users decicions and makes a recomendation based on the majority. When you first install it goes through all the programmes you have installed and makes a recomendation and you can decide whether to concur or not.

Avira isn't bad by any means. It actually had the highest detection rate out of any of the free AVs. But as far as all round software goes Avast came out on top.