Tall Emu, a small but dedicated software company based in Australia, has been quietly developing and refining Online Armor almost as if it were reading Scot’s Newsletter’s specifications for the ideal software firewall for Windows XP and earlier. Some of those specs include (updated 1/22/2008):
- Very low system overhead with a strong preference for standalone software — no full-blown security suites
- Full compatibility with popular third-party standalone software from other security application categories
- Excellent outbound security protection, as pre-screened by Matousec.com
- Simple, informative, and highly usable user interface
- Reliability
- Works quietly, alerts you when there are real problems not for the heck of it
- Strong, responsive development team behind the product that is actively developing the product in a rational manner
- A feature that lets users rapidly shutdown all inbound and outbound activity
- Protects but doesn’t cause intermittent problems with Windows local-area network functionality.
Another specification is that the firewall support Windows XP (at least) and Windows Vista. (At the moment, Online Armor does not support Vista. Tall Emu plans to add that support in a forthcoming though possibly not imminent release.)
This post is a sneak peek into my current testing and research on software firewalls for Windows since I last wrote about this topic six weeks ago. In that article, I admitted Online Armor as a last-minute entry into the comparison to give Comodo 3 one last run for the money.
Over the last month and a half, I have received scores of helpful messages from Scot’s Newsletter readers detailing their experiences with Online Armor 2 and Comodo 3. I have also tested the paid version of Online Armor. My research has not concluded yet. I’m waiting for the next version of Online Armor because of a handful of issues with the product (installation mode doesn’t work that well and the documentation for the paid version is very spotty). Overall, however, people testing Online Armor who’ve written to me about it are very positive about it. Few people are reporting serious problems. The same cannot be said for Comodo 3, whose makers have released three or more iterations of Comodo 3 because of several bugs, crashes, and errors.
When you install Comodo 3 in its Basic Firewall installation mode — which doesn’t install the HIPS (host-intrusion-prevention system) — it’s a much more reliable and usable product. But it’s also potentially less protective than Online Armor’s built-in HIPS protection. I’m also beginning to become disillusioned with Comodo’s approach to software development. The company culture appears to favor hurry and time to market over testing and polish. I realize the product is entirely free. But when you experience a serious problem as some people have with Comodo 3, it becomes your time and frustration.
I have to stress the point that I have not had trouble with Comodo 3. It works pretty well for me (except for a bug related to its Help facility that caused a crash in the first release of Comodo 3). But I have had numerous emails from readers about their problems with Comodo 3. Many of those people have gone back to Comodo 2.4 or switched to some other firewall.
So, at this juncture, I’m leaning toward Online Armor, which has been 100% trouble free for me. I still have to perform security tests on Online Armor. Plus I need more time with it. And I’m waiting for an update to the product to see whether a few areas improve. Online Armor is a relatively young product. Its makers are still adding significant new functionality.
I’m still looking for your input on the latest versions of these two products. If you’re using Comodo 3 or Online Armor 3 (or both), please take a moment to send me your experiences, positive or negative, with the two software firewalls:
Or you can post them right here as a comment to this blog entry.
Stay tuned for a final software firewall recommendation. For more information on Windows software firewalls, check out the entire software firewall evaluation series.