Review Of Comodo Antivirus – Free Antivirus Software

Important note: Comodo Antivirus is no longer offered as a standalone product, but is still available as part of Comodo's free Internet Security suite. Read Bright Hub's review of Comodo's new security suite: Comodo Internet Security.

When it comes to antivirus software, many people prefer to spend their money on commercial, off-the-shelf security products. However, with several free-to-use antivirus packages available, there’s no need to have to pay for internet security. Comodo, one of the world’s leading IT security providers, has a range of security products that are free to use with a lifetime usage licence and Comodo’s antivirus software is just one product in their range. But is it any good?

First of all, it should be noted that the current version of the Comodo Antivirus scanning engine is still a beta version, so users should expect the odd bug or irregularity. Comodo is working on an updated version of the engine, and hopes to release it in the not-too-distant future. While the beta status may put people off, it shouldn’t as the engine is solid and robust.

Comodo’s free antivirus comes with a host of features not normally seen in a free product. Features of this anti virus software include:

• Individual computer and network protection – yes, despite it's being free, Comodo AV can be used in a network environment to protect servers and client PCs, as well as being able to scan across network drives and folders.
• On Access Scanning – Real-time protection against virus infection.
• On Demand Scanning – Check a file, disk or folder for possible infection before use.
• HIPS Protection – Host Intrusion Prevention System enables users to prevent and stop malicious spyware and malware from being installed or executed.
• Removable Device Scanning – Check through all known sources of infection from add-in peripherals such as CDs, DVDs, USB Sticks and even your cell phone.
• Incremental Scanning – Allows faster scans by ignoring files and folders marked as ‘safe.’
• Heuristic Detection – Identifies unknown viruses by analysing behaviour patterns of software code.
• Process Monitoring – Continually scans memory resident applications and processes.
• Email Scanning – Scans both incoming and outgoing email and attachments.
• Worm Blocker - protection against worm programs that attempt to duplicate themselves by sending mass mailings to your contact list.
• Compressed File Scans – Can scan within compressed file formats such as .RAR and .ZIP.
• Daily Updates – Automated daily updates of the virus signature database.
• Quarantine Files – Quarantine suspicious files so they cannot run.
• Safe List – Create a customized safe list of programs and files installed to speed up scans.
• Full Reports – Comprehensive logs and results of all anti-virus scans performed.
• Scan Scheduling – Choose when to update your virus definitions and antivirus scans.
• File Submission – Submit suspicious files to Comodo Labs for analysis.

For a free product, it’s certainly a comprehensive, feature-rich package far in excess of any of its free antivirus rivals. Some paid-for AV software should also sit up and take notice.

Installation of Comodo Antivirus is relatively painless – there’s no need to register the product and your system will require a reboot to finish the installation process. On first run it automatically builds a custom profile of your files and folders to configure its scanning engine. Comodo’s interface won’t win a style award, but it is clean, uncluttered and easy to navigate. All the key functions of the software are easily accessible.

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One area where Comodo’s antivirus is impressive is its impact on system resources. On my test system, the resource drain was light and there were no hangs or slowdown from the system when opening files or applications.

Scanning speed was excellent and faster than those of other free antivirus programs with a full scan of my test system taking around 40 minutes to complete. It may not be the fastest scanner out there, but by way of comparison, Grisoft’s AVG 8.0 antivirus took almost double that time to complete the same scan. How accurate that time actually is is perhaps open to debate given the product’s beta status. However, there’s no real reason to disagree about its timing and this difference could well be down to the initial profiling of the system by the software.

To benchmark, the test system used comprised of an AMD64 3200+ Processor, 1GB of DDR400 RAM and a 250GB Samsung Spinpoint IDE hard-drive. Installed was Windows XP and Service Pack 2 and 40GB of assorted files.