Comodo Internet Security Pro

The first generation suite of Comodo still has a long way to go.

Comodo Internet Security Pro 3.8 is the first version of its kind in the market of Internet security suite, whose price for single user (one year) is $40 and its three user license hasn’t been listed yet as of May 5, 2009. According to our testing and use, Comodo Internet Security shows that it is indeed its first time to come out in the market, as its performance was not at all convincing. While we were testing the Internet Security Pro 3.8 it was reported that, Comodo released its next version, Internet Security Pro 3.9. With this new release Comodo tried to fix some of the performance related problem with the Internet Security Pro 3.8 like, the dynamic file inspection, which was included to act as a real time virus scanner.

Comodo gained some popularity because of its offer of the free version of Firewall. But Comodo didn’t follow the ZoneAlarm in creating the Internet security suite, by not adopting any license technology from the vendors of antispam, antivirus or the software for parental-control. Comodo created an entirely new antivirus engine in addition to some malware protection.

Comodo Internet Security Pro 3.8 scored only 48 percent, while being tested for the on-access as well as on-demand scanning by AV-Test.org. In this test, Comodo Internet Security made to detect 2735 files including different macro viruses and scripts. It detected only 16 percent of the macro viruses. But, this was the kind of performance that could be expected from a completely novice Internet security suite. But in another test Comodo Internet security fared a little better by detecting almost 57 percent of worms, Trojan horses and password-stealers from a sample of 722,372 malware. This kind of performance made the Comodo Internet security to be placed behind PC Tools Suite.

The best performance of Comodo Internet security was found to be working in case of behavior-based detection of different malware. It gave the warnings in almost 93 percent of cases, then detectd as well as blocked the malware in almost 80 percent of cases and at last truncated almost 53 percent of the malware, which makes it one of the best Internet security suite as far as the behavior based detection is concerned.

Comodo Internet security has not been as good at removing the rootkits as it has been in detecting them. Rootkits are the stealth malware, whose only function is to hide the different infections of the system from different security programs as well as from the system itself. It got success in the detection of all of the inactive rootkits, i.e. 100 percent of them and further identified 80% of the various active rootkits. As far as detection was concerned it performed quite well, but when it came to remove the rootkits, its performance was not at all commendable. It has been able to remove only 66% of the various rootkits, which is one of the lowest percentages any security suite has ever secured.

It also failed to perform any better in detecting the unknown malware, the signature of which was still not included in the database of Comodo Internet security. With the signature files, only two week old, it could show an identification percentage of 17 percent and with the signature files, four week old, it could only show an identification percentage of 14 percent.

As the test, conducted by AV-Test.org, suggests the response time of the Comodo Internet security, towards the attack of some widespread malware, is too long. It takes almost 24 hours for the Comodo Internet security to show a virus definition update, whereas the G-Data doesn’t even take 2 hours to respond. But the Comodo Internet security is found to be producing more updates of the signature files than that produced by the PC Tools. In January 2009 it produced 46 signature updates, in February 2009 produced 41 and in March 2009 produced 45 signature updates. This brings about its average signature updates to 1.5 each day, whereas the Norton Internet Security 2009 suite produce more than 200 signature updates a day.

Icons are used for the navigation purpose in the Comodo Internet security suite, which also provides some other very interesting features like, the protection of the Registry key from any unauthorized modification. It also provides capability to save your trusted files from being disclosed even before a vendor. But there is a problem with the grouping of the COM interfaces, as it is not clear to most of the users what to do with this feature. There is another very profound drawback of using the Comodo Internet security suite, as it doesn’t provide any antiphising or antispam protection to its users, while it is a widely known fact that these days the threat from phising sites are increasing day by day and it is a great cause of concern for the protection of PCs.

Comodo Internet Security Suite is not in a position, at least for now; to give any competition to any other Internet security suites. But this fact can be ignored, if it is considered that it is only the first version of it that has been released in the market and there is hope that the Comodo will do add some more attractive features to its security suite as well as remove some of the drawbacks too. It can emerge as a winner among the security suites if it improves its antivirus engine and add some new features too. Until then, it is safe to go with the other more reliable security suites like Norton Internet Security 2009, G-Data and BitDefender Internet Security 2010.