To address the problem you had with Comodo towards the end, oblivion, I believe Microsoft provided a way inside Action Center to change the way notifications are presented regarding what Windows thinks is and and isn't installed on your system in the way of security software.

-Innuendo (April 12, 2015, 12:03 PM)

I probably didn't explain myself very well on that front.

The problem here was not that Windows was telling me I was at risk. Windows was happy the moment I switched Windows Firewall back on, having disabled the Comodo one.

Comodo's tray icon, in the Pro version, only has one state when there's a security issue from its viewpoint, and IT doesn't look to see if there's an alternate firewall running, it just panics because the Comodo firewall isn't. Windows, by contrast, knows that there's a firewall running, even if it's not the Windows firewall, and only bothers to mention it at all if you go and look at the Windows firewall settings. Although it goes against the grain for me to praise Microsoft for anything, that's exactly the behaviour I'd hope for.
 

That would be an acceptable temporary solution until you can report the problem and Comodo can fix it.

Comodo's view seems to be that if I didn't want all the abilities of the paid version, I shouldn't have updated it.

Which I guess I can sympathise with. I assumed the paid version would be an improvement over the free version within the facilities I was actually using, not just a way to get access to components I didn't actually expect to have to use, or particularly need.

Another thing you may try is see if there's a way to reinstall the suite with just the security component(s) you'd like.

If I decide to switch away from MSE again -- and I may, I change my mind about the best security choices based on what I read and experience -- then I'll look at other possibilities too. The increase in performance of my poor little netbook since removing Comodo has been such that I'm actually thinking that I made a poor choice initially, despite the positive reviews.

As for MSE, there is no way on God's green Earth that MSE could be described as "good enough" by any stretch of the word by modern standards.

Nevertheless, might it be "good enough" given that I use Firefox with Noscript, rarely if ever connect to the net anywhere except behind a router that I've told to use OpenDNS with all the "filter out the bad guys" setting enabled and rarely if ever download stuff from places I'm not confident of?

For the time being, anyway. ;)

Just out of interest, although I've got a license for MBAM and can therefore use its realtime stuff if I want, I never have. Does anyone have a view on whether ditching MSE and turning on realtime protection in MBAM would be a step forward or back, given my other (hopefully fairly safe) practices?

Use MSE only if you are solely concerned with finding cracks and keygens on your system as that seems to be the only thing Microsoft is issuing signature updates to protect users from these days.

Does that include Defender?

My favourite realtime AV was NOD32 -- I switched away from it only really because I lost confidence in Eset's support for it compared to the fullblown security suite, and as (at the time) I was using either Windows firewall or my lifetime license for Outpost (I must check if that still exists!) depending on which machine/OS I was using, I really didn't see the point of buying into components I didn't need (where have we heard that before?!) But I'm pretty agnostic, really: I'll consider anything that's not going to cripple the machine's performance and has at least some credibility (so let's forget about Norton and McAfee!)

I've never seriously considered ClamWin (except its portable version lives on a thumbdrive in case of dire need) -- last I looked I think it was still missing disinfection facilities -- but from what you say I might be as well served by it and MBAM as I am by MSE...

Food for thought. :)
 

This isn't really a cry for help as a story detailing some of my experiences that others may find useful. I posted a version of this on Gizmo's (as I used their security expertise for one of the relevant decisions I made here) but it's a bit in the grey area for them because it's not just freeware I discuss.

I have a Win7SE netbook. It's about five years old now -- an Asus Eee -- and despite the small limitations of having Starter Edition instead of one of the more <cough> expensive versions of Win 7, it's been pretty good and very reliable.

Naturally, being something I carry around with me quite a bit, security's a greater concern than it might be if it was always sitting at home behind my router. It's had various AV packages, paid and free, on it over the years: when I first got it, I used Microsoft Security Essentials, then I discovered that MSE was tying rocks round the ankles of FindAndRunRobot so I extended my desktop's eSet NOD32 license to include it, then after I decided eSet weren't quite the company they used to be, I went to TechSupportAlert's security page looking for the current top two or three picks and, after some thought, went with the free version of Comodo Internet Security.

I've been using it for about a year. It was noisy for a while, as it learnt about its environment, but my main observation of it was that it was a bit demanding for my taste, at update time, in particular: the download of updated signatures takes what it takes but the time to apply them and the CPU usage while it does it (bearing in mind this is an Intel Atom 1.6GHz machine, not exactly a powerhouse) is enough to make me sigh and go and do something else for a while.

There are also occasional onscreen notifications that almost count as advertising. They're not too big of a deal, not frequent, but I'm often slightly grumpy about such things... however, a week or so back, one of these notifications offered me a full license for a year for $5. That's cheap enough that it hardly matters, I thought, and maybe it'll get me a bit more performance and a package that sits quietly in the background more. So I went for it.

I shouldn't have.

First, although it accepted my swiftly-emailed license key, it instantly started reporting problems. With the help of Comodo's support, the (huge!) offline installer for the current product was downloaded, the existing installation uninstalled and reinstalled from the download, configured and installed and everything looked fine again.

Except that I was now using their firewall rather than Windows. It is definitely easier to configure, it looks capable, it's nice and informative, but the performance hit the system has taken since the full Comodo Security Suite was installed and enabled has been noticeable.

This morning, I decided to switch off the Comodo firewall component and go back to Windows firewall.

The product started complaining loudly that I'm at risk, and I can't find a way to tell it to ignore the firewall's "off" status and just focus on the status of the AV engine. Performance instantly improved, at least to pre-upgrade levels, but at the cost of an "at risk" warning in my system tray that, effectively, is a false positive I can't do anything about.

So I chose to remove it all, lock, stock and barrel, and go back to MSE. I might try Comodo on my desktop machine -- Win 8.1 with a much faster dual core cpu -- just so my $5 doesn't go entirely to waste, but I'm not sure right now that I want to...

I've never been completely happy with any sort of software suites: I'd rather choose components that fit my needs rather than hoping that (as in this case) the other bits that get bundled with my antivirus of choice were also fit for purpose. I get the concept of integration, I'm just not sure it ever really delivers on its promises... ;)

My desktop PC is currently "only" protected with Windows' inbuilt security: the firewall and Defender. From what I think I know about Windows 8.1 and the inbuilt security stuff, coupled with the fact that I try to practice what I preach on the subject of sensible web browsing (and I use OpenDNS with their more sensible levels of security chosen and locked into my router) I'm probably okay, and $5 isn't much to lose (to the extent that if I ask for a refund I'll probably just add it to my DC donation for this year!) but I COULD try it on the desktop box...

Anyone got an useful $.02 to chip in?

(This won't be the first time I've wasted cash on security software: I bought a lifetime license for Vipre a while back that was sufficient of a learning experience that I didn't even bother documenting it above :) )