Comodo Firewall Pro (CFP; previously COMODO Firewall) is a freeware firewall developed by Comodo Group that provides protection on a Microsoft Windows operating system from both inbound and outbound attacks. While on a 2006 independent review comprised of outbound application filtering tests and leak tests, version 1.1.005 gained only a medium score, on another independent review based on leak tests in 2007, the newer version 2.4.18.184 was rated amongst the best Windows personal firewalls with the highest score when configured at its highest security settings. Version 3.0 includes HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System) technology, to protect a computer from unknown attacks.

Version History

Version 2 and 3

Criticism

Although appreciated for being released as freeware, there is a growing community of users frustrated by the lack of developer support in correcting known issues in the versions 2.x. An example is the high CPU usage by CPF.EXE due to input/output processing for writing to a log file, which has been a known issue since February 2007.

Additionally, there are a few serious vulnerabilities in the firewall's design that can be exploited locally, meaning that, while the firewall's protection remains solid, a malware can be designed to shut down or bypass the firewall's control functions if it somehow makes it onto the computer. Several other critical vulnerabilities are known which have not been disclosed. All are as of 2.4.18.184 still unpatched. There is uncertainty as to whether they will be fixed in version 2.5 or not, but an administrator on the beta forum has stated that version 3 should not have any critical bugs left. So far no tests have been conducted on CFP 3. There is currently extremely little or no malware whatsoever designed to thwart CFP, largely due to it not being as widespread as other security solutions.