Comodo Free Antivirus Review

Comodo Antivirus is certainly one of the best free antivirus programs available, due mostly to its suite of defense technologies that assumes files are threats until they prove otherwise.

Some other antivirus programs are only concerned with specific files that have historically shown to be problematic, and others will know how to identify threats only if the proper virus definitions have been downloaded.

Comodo's free AV program is nearly 100 percent effective at threat detection because it leverages cloud-based analysis and sandboxes threats before they reach your regular files.

Those features and more are packaged in this one program that's easy to use and super customizable.

More Information on Comodo Antivirus

There's a lot included in this free program:

• Includes a full range of detection engines for viruses, spyware, rootkits, zero-day threats, and other malware
• Supports four scan types: quick, full, rating, and custom. You can also trigger an on-demand scan from File Explorer by right-clicking any file or folder
• Scanned files are contained in a separate part of your computer to be analyzed so that if they're malicious, they can be taken care of before they affect anything else
• Program updates are checked as frequently as every day, and database updates can be checked as often as every hour
• Can scan the PC's memory each time the computer first starts up
• It can decompress archives and scan the files inside. You get to pick which archive formats this happens for
• File size limits can be set so that not everything is scanned
• You have full control over the malware scanning schedule and what gets scanned during each scheduled check
• Extremely in-depth options for auto-containment, such as blocking all known malicious apps and running unrecognized programs in virtual mode
• VirusScope is enabled by default to analyze the behavior of running processes and keep a record of their activities, and you can optionally turn on Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS)
• Any file, folder, application, or certificate authority can be excluded from scans
• Create a rescue disk to clean a computer without booting to the operating system
• Submit any suspicious file to Comodo for analysis
• Can optionally provide added security by using Comodo's free DNS servers on your computer
• Includes password protection if you want to prevent unauthorized users from changing the program's settings

Thoughts on Comodo Antivirus

Comodo Antivirus is in a class of its own as an antivirus and anti-malware solution. The fact that a free program with free updates can almost completely protect you from malicious software should have you replacing your current antivirus program as soon as possible, especially if you're (gasp!) paying someone for the one you have running today.

One drawback is that sometimes it seems as if the program won't open. It's still running in the background and can launch file scans automatically and on-demand, but the program interface itself is sometimes buggy and won't fully launch. This may or may not be an issue for other users—it's just something we've noticed a handful of times while using it.

Comodo's website says their free AV program works with Windows 10, 8, 7, and macOS, but we were able to use it just fine in Windows 11 as well.