Best Anti-Malware Defense for your PC? - A Review of Comodo Internet Security Complete 2012

After being plunged into the world of information security, I became more serious about my choice of free anti-malware programs. Yes, I am kinda thrifty (or cheap if you want to call me that).

Of course, I began by searching the web. I searched far and wide. I looked at the forums, reviews, and even studies by experts. As an effect, I learned that I needed a good combination of antivirus, firewall, and host intrusion prevention system. As long as one doesn't conflict with the other, than all will be good. 

Based on experience (and you can verify this by researching the web), some anti-malware programs don't work well with each other. And this normally happens when you have more than one of the same type installed on your PC. For example, you might have both AVG and Avast installed on your laptop. Most of the time, this combination leads both programs to eat away at your computer's resources (CPU and RAM) and this, most often than not, leads to a crash. Of course, a computer crash leads to a lot of user frustration. Some anti-malware programs, even if different from the other (a firewall and an antivirus), still don't work harmoniously with each other. For lack of thorough testing and investigation, I can't exactly say which work well or badly with each other. But this can happen. Of course, it is also highly plausible to use a combination of a firewall from one vendor and an antivirus from another without encountering any major disasters.

A good compromise would be to have all three anti-malware programs (antivirus, firewall, and HIPS) provided by one vendor. This would have the highest chance of avoiding any of the conflicts I mentioned earlier. 

Limiting my search to this scenario, led me to a wonderful website called Matousec.com. First of all, they are vendor neutral. They specialize in testing security software on Microsoft Windows systems. This is where I found one of their projects called the Security Software Testing Suite. Where they tested commercial and free anti-malware suites against a battery/barrage of different attacks - a leaktest, autorun test, spying test, self-defense test, etc... The latest project is called Proactive Security Challenge 64, which is updated to incorporate the latest possible attacks on your computer. The vendors of the anti-malware programs are then free to contest and comment on their findings. Details can be found on their website.

One thing caught my eye, the one anti-malware suite that consistently came out on top on both their old and new projects is Comodo Internet Security Premium, with aproduct score of 94%. This has an antivirus, firewall, and HIPS. It also has a cloud-based scanning, which makes it light on resource consumption.

Below are the main features as mentioned in Comodo's website:

• Antivirus: Tracks down and destroy any existing malware hiding in a PC.
• Anti-Spyware: Detects spyware threats and destroys each infection.
• Anti-Rootkit: Scans, detects & removes rootkits on your computer.
• Bot Protection: Prevents malicious software turning your PC into a zombie.
• Defense+: Protects critical system files and blocks malware before it installs.
• Auto Sandbox Technology™: Runs unknown files in an isolated environment where they can cause no damage.
• Memory Firewall: Cutting-edge protection against sophisticated buffer overflow attacks.
• Anti-Malware: Kills malicious processes before they can do harm.

The paid version called the Comodo Internet Security Complete 2012 above has a Live Expert Virus Removal where one of Comodo's experts will clean your PC, uninstall old antivirus, and ensure your PC remains clean. The paid version also has a $500 guarantee which covers your PC for repair costs, should your PC become infected with a virus or malware and if Comodo can't restore it to working condition. It also has TrustConnect Wi-Fi Data Encryption which defends against wireless information theft (useful when using public Wi-Fi) and a 10 gigabyte online storage which backs up your files to a secure online virtual vault.

So the added features in the paid version are: 

1. Live expert removal - a real person to help you out!
2. $500 guarantee against malware
3. wireless envryption for safety in public wifi acces
4. 10 Gigabyte (GB) of online backup.

With these bonuses, it's very cheap compared to other anti-malware suite programs out there. 

I personally use this, but I'll be keeping an eye on the  Proactive Security Challenge 64 and see what else will top this one.

Note: I haven't seen any independent tests similar to the Proactive Security Challenge 64 conducted by Matousec. Independent, which means they are vendor neutral and unbiased. If any of you hears of anything, please let me know so I can also investigate.