No.

how does the comodo compare to the windows firewall that comes with vista? should i turn off the windows version and run comodo?

Yes

Comodo is one of the best firewalls you can get, much better than any built in windows firewall.

You can check out www.matousec.com for firewall leak testing.

I know with windows firewall in XP, it offers no outbound leak detection/protection, but I think I've read it's been implemented in Vista, still surely not as good as solid 3rd party firewalls like Comodo.

TeamViewer: www.teamviewer.com

Free (personal, non-commercial only) and robust remote desktop assistance

I started using this one when AVG 8 started giving me "out of memory" errors for some reason.

You can disable the pop up by going into the directory where Avira Antivir is installed (use an Administrator account) and right clicking on avnotify.exe, choose Properties, go to the Security tab, and check the Deny Read and Execute permissions. Do this for every user.

I just set a local security policy to disallow that exe. I'm on XP pro though.

WinLAME

"winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface.

winLAME supports many input audio formats, and uses the LAME mp3 encoding library for encoding and the MAD decoding library for decoding."

http://winlame.sourceforge.net/

Every 30 minutes a pop-up is asking me to buy the pro version.

M8,

F**K. YOU.

teracopy. This program is EXCELLENT for copying/moving large amounts of data between hard drives. It goes so much faster. Another nice benefit that I like more in windows, is let's say you're moving a total of 8 different folders about 1-2 gb each. In windows, if you don't select them all at once, each new copy/paste opens in a new window and runs concurrently with the last one which is obviously slower. Teracopy just queues them all to the end of the file list and processes them one at a time. I've also had problems in the past with windows somehow forgetting to copy an entire folder, but I've never had that problem teracopy.

I'm not smart enough to naviagate this page. Is there someplace that I can click where it will test my firewall leak? If so I can't find it

I ran comodo for about 4 months. For some reason it would bog down every few weeks and I'd have to uninstall/reinstall it. I finally gave up and started using zonealarm's free version

Forgive me if these have been mentioned. I ctrl-Fd this thread for them and didn't find anything.

Google Chrome - Browser from google. Recently came out of beta.

Picasa - Very nice photo managing software. Also from google.

Winpatrol - Multipurpose tool for Windows that allows you to manage and keep an eye on startup programs, activeX controls, Services etc. I personally use this software and install it on all my personal machines.

Revo Uninstaller - Uninstalls programs and cleans up most of the garbage some of them leave behind.

Yes. I think matousec has some leak testing tools you can download, but I haven't tried them.

There's also websites you can run a port scan test at.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

It will scan your ports to see if they're stealthed, closed, or open.

Revo is great. I've been using it for maybe 4 - 6 months, I think I first heard of it from you McSimmons. It's a great app.