Comodo Antivirus 2012

Going online without an antivirus utility to guard your back is just foolish. Even the safest, biggest site can be hacked so that just visiting it earns you an unwanted malware attack. Cost is no excuse, not when there are free choices like Comodo Antivirus 2012. But be warned: Comodo's behavior-based Defense+ module will enlist you as an essential member of the malware-fighting team.

Installation
Comodo Antivirus installed without difficulty on all but one of my 12 malware-infested test systems. The installation process felt rather long, with a required reboot followed by a lengthy antivirus signature update. Immediately on finishing the update, Comodo launched a full scan. That makes sense?the first thing most users want to do is make sure there are no lurking threats.

On the one problem system, Comodo's installation failed with an error message every time due to interference by malware. Installing in Safe Mode didn't work, so I cleaned up the system using Comodo Cleaning Essentials (free, 4.5 stars). After that, the antivirus installed without trouble.

Average Cleanup
At the end of each malware cleanup session, Comodo reported that it had found malware and offered to have a GeekBuddy expert handle the cleanup process. I found this a little misleading, since GeekBuddy service is not free. In each case, I clicked away the offer.

Comodo lists all the malware threats it found, along with the associated file and Registry traces. It assigns each found item a risk level, but marks threats of all levels for removal. In a few cases, it needed a reboot to complete the cleanup.

Comodo detected 85 percent of the threats, just a hair below average. Poor removal of the traces it did find earned it a mediocre malware removal score, 5.4 of 10 possible points. It left behind executable traces for close to half the detected threats, and for nearly half of those at least one process was still running after supposed removal. Comodo left behind all the non-executable traces for many of the rest. AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 (free, 4 stars), our Editors' Choice for free antivirus, scored 6.5 in this test.

This antivirus proved especially weak against rootkits, detecting 85 percent of them and scoring a low, low 3.9 points, the same as McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2012 ($39.99 direct, 3.5 stars). Comodo Cleaning Essentials removed two rootkits in order to allow installation of Comodo Antivirus. Of those detected by the antivirus alone, all remained running with their rootkit technology still active.

Comodo Antivirus did detect all the scareware samples, but most products manage that feat. Comodo's score of 8.3 for scareware removal is actually low, given that well over half the current competition scored 9.5 or higher. Norton AntiVirus 2012 ($39.99 direct, 4.5 stars) and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Free 1.51 (free, 4 stars) aced this test with a perfect 10.

For an explanation of my testing technique, see How We Test Malware Removal.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/U2cphNYH8Oo/0,2817,2399139,00.asp

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