Comodo releases free Programs Manager utility

Comodo used to be a one-trick pony, but their firewall software was (and still is) an excellent piece of software. In the last couple of years, however, they've begun branching out -- releasing a handful of other applications like a Chromium-based Web browser, free antivirus, and several system utilities. Their most recent offering is Comodo Programs Manager -- a kind of kicked-up version of Windows' Programs and Features (or Add/Remove Programs on XP).

Programs Manager contains four modules -- programs, drivers and services, Windows features, and Windows updates. They're all pretty similar to the Windows defaults you'll find in Control Panel, however, and I'm not sure Programs Manager offers enough benefits to warrant installing on its own. As part of a larger offering -- say, a multi-functional system utilities suite from Comodo -- Programs Manager might be a worthy app... provided it receives a few more feature tweaks.

For starters, while you can select multiple apps to uninstall in the programs view, Comodo PM has the same problem many other apps do. Rather than launching the uninstallers in sequence, it tries to fire them all up at once. Comodo would do well to look at uninstallers like PC Decrapifier and Revo Uninstaller for some ideas on potential improvements.

Another addition I'd like to see is the option to manually back up drivers. You can restore an automatically created backup after uninstalling a driver, but there's no way to export everything for safe keeping.

If you've given Comodo Programs Manager a try, share your thoughts in the comments. Got a favorite alternative? Let us hear about that, too!

Tags: comodo, features, manager, programs, uninstall, updates, utilities