Comodo Antivirus Review (2026): Is it the right choice?

Full Review

Comodo offers a strong firewall and virtual desktop but falls short in malware detection compared to leading antivirus options like Norton. Its anti-phishing, secure browser, and ad blocker are outdated, with no significant updates since 2021. Features like VPN and cloud storage have been discontinued from paid plans, leaving only 24/7 tech support and a virus guarantee, making it a poor value for paid users.

While Comodo’s core security tools are free, better free options exist, such as Avira. For more comprehensive protection, Norton remains our top choice for paid antivirus.

Anti-Malware

Comodo’s anti-malware system provides several scanning modes — Quick, Full, Rating, and Custom. While the scanner benefits from frequent database updates, its detection capability falls short compared to leading antivirus providers. The Quick Scan performs rapidly but fails to identify multiple malware samples that other antiviruses, like Norton and Bitdefender, consistently detect. The Full Scan improves detection to around 94%, but this still lags behind the 100% benchmarks set by premium competitors.

The Rating Scan checks files against Comodo’s cloud database to assess trustworthiness but often misclassifies safe files, producing unreliable results. In contrast, the Custom Scan offers flexibility, allowing users to schedule scans for specific folders or files, which performed reliably in testing.

Comodo’s real-time protection, supported by a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS), blocks most malicious files upon download, though its success rate is approximately 92%. Advanced users can configure HIPS to restrict executable actions. However, limited customization options, such as adjusting scan intensity or whitelisting, make Comodo’s overall anti-malware feature merely adequate when compared to competitors offering full control and higher detection rates.

Anti-Phishing

Comodo’s anti-phishing capabilities underperform against industry standards. During testing, its phishing protection failed to block as many fraudulent websites as Google Chrome’s built-in system, with Chrome consistently outperforming Comodo. When compared to high-end antivirus solutions like Norton and McAfee, Comodo’s detection rate was notably lower.

Its website filtering function further limits its effectiveness, as it only supports Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox—two browsers that have significantly declined in relevance. This lack of universal browser compatibility makes the tool impractical for users relying on modern browsers like Chrome, Edge, or Safari.

Overall, while Comodo’s phishing protection offers some degree of site blocking and customization, it remains outdated and unreliable. Competing software provides more comprehensive, accurate, and cross-browser protection, making Comodo’s feature inadequate for safeguarding users from modern phishing threats.

Firewall

Comodo’s Secure Firewall is the standout feature of its security suite, offering deep customization and powerful protection against network intrusions. It effectively detects spoofing attempts, unauthorized traffic, and malware-based network activity that Windows’ built-in firewall often misses. Users can choose from four modes — Block All, Custom Ruleset, Safe Mode, and Training Mode — depending on their expertise and needs.

Safe Mode provides balanced protection by automatically managing known traffic and prompting the user for unfamiliar connections. Advanced users benefit from Custom Ruleset, which allows rule creation for specific applications, while Training Mode uses behavioral learning to generate rules based on usage patterns. However, Training Mode carries risk if malware is active during setup, as it can inadvertently whitelist threats.

Additional options include anti-ARP spoofing, IPv6 filtering, and per-connection blocking. Users can easily review and unblock safe applications via an intuitive interface. Overall, Comodo’s firewall ranks among the best, rivaling premium competitors like Norton and Bitdefender with its balance of usability, precision, and control.

VPN

Comodo advertises a VPN service called TrustConnect as part of its paid Internet Security Pro plan, but the feature is effectively nonfunctional. Testing revealed that the VPN is unavailable, with customer support claiming it is “under maintenance.” However, evidence suggests that TrustConnect has been discontinued since approximately 2012, yet it continues to appear in marketing materials.

This outdated and inactive VPN service significantly weakens Comodo’s value proposition, particularly for users who expect private browsing and secure public Wi-Fi protection. Competing antivirus vendors such as Bitdefender and Avast include fully functional VPNs that encrypt data traffic and maintain user anonymity online.

Until Comodo replaces or restores a working VPN solution, its offering cannot be considered complete for modern cybersecurity needs. Users seeking integrated VPN functionality should look elsewhere for reliable, active services.

Other Security Features

Comodo supplements its core features with a range of additional tools, though many are inconsistent in performance or completely nonfunctional. Its Virtual Desktop offers a secure sandbox for testing suspicious files without endangering the host system. In tests, malware executed inside this environment failed to escape, confirming its effectiveness — though the feature primarily benefits advanced users familiar with system-level testing environments.

Secure Shopping acts as a protected browser to prevent keylogging, remote access, and screenshot capture. Despite these intended protections, the tool exhibited bugs during testing, allowing screen captures and occasionally blocking legitimate applications. Competing secure browsers from Bitdefender perform significantly better.

The Ad Blocker extension is entirely ineffective, failing to block pop-ups or online ads. Other supplementary tools such as KillSwitch and Gaming Mode work moderately well; KillSwitch provides enhanced process control beyond Windows Task Manager, while Gaming Mode silences notifications during full-screen use but lacks automatic activation and performance optimization.

Comodo’s Cloud Backup and VPN offerings are either nonfunctional or discontinued, and the Task Manager failed to operate entirely. These reliability issues undermine user confidence and detract from the overall utility of the security suite. While Comodo’s feature set is broad on paper, many tools require updates or replacements to be genuinely useful in 2026.

Test score comparison

We conduct in-house anti-malware tests and review the results from AV-Test, a German lab renowned for its objective evaluations. Below is the average of the last 10 AV-Test results for Windows. Their scoring criteria are:

• Protection (1-6): Effectiveness in blocking malware.
• Performance (1-6): Impact on system speed.
• Usability (1-6): Frequency of errors like false alarms.

We calculate a final score using this formula:

Final Score = 60% Protection + 20% Performance + 20% Usability.

While these results influence our choice of the best antivirus for Windows 11, other factors like privacy and identity protection also play a key role. For a similar analysis for Android or macOS, visit our other comparisons:

• The best antivirus for Android.
• The best antivirus for Mac.

Note: Brands not listed in the table either do not participate in AV-Test trials or are tested too infrequently, such as Surfshark Antivirus.

Source: AV-Test (Last updated: November 2025).

Price comparison

We’ve compared the prices of the top antivirus products for Windows. To make it a fair comparison, we looked at what it would cost us, to protect a  single Windows PC with the most essential features:

• Anti-malware
• Anti-phishing (web protection)
• Firewall
• Password manager
• Unlimited VPN (no data limit)

A few notes:

• Some brands are missing features, lowering their value for money.
• Prices are second-year prices in the USA, without first-year discounts.
• Prices are rounded up for readability (e.g., $99.99 becomes $100).

Brands have different prices outside the USA. See those on their website.

User reviews

We’ve compared the user reviews of all antivirus brands. We’ve used the scores and review count of TrustPilot, a leading user review platform. 

We consider scores above 4.0 very good. Lower scores indicate that the brand might have a poor product or customer service. McAfee’s scores, for instance, are worrying.

Source: TrustPilot. Last Update: November 2025.