I initially only installed “Comodo Firewall” but for some reason they also installed a “Comodo Dragon Browser”, which I did not consent to. I always choose the “advanced” installation to uncheck bloatware, but in this case there was none and when you try to uninstall the browser, they force you to participate in their survey otherwise you won’t be able to uninstall the software…
On windows is there no other way of uninstalling a program beside their own uninstaller? If so that seems like it would be really easy to abuse.
Depends on the installer. Windows has been pushing the .MSI installer format which is managed to some extent by a centralized system install manager, meaning the system should be able to revert the changes without any custom uninstaller. Installers can still bypass it to some degree though, and it has an option to run a custom .exe on uninstall, but there is also a special cleanup tool (you have to download it separately from Windows support forums) that can “force remove” all the stuff installed by the .MSI.
But otherwise it’s like asking “can’t you uninstall a .deb without running a custom uninstaller script included in the .deb?”…
Of course that you can delete all the files and folders of the program, but firewalls and such operate on a quite low level and fining all the files is a pain in the ass
There’s also registry entries, and I imagine some of the files installed as part of a firewall end up as essential for a working network connection because they’re registered as such.
I highly advise you using Revo Uninstaller who cleans the regedit and looks for remaining files
Control panel can do it, the software can pop up and ask you why you did it, did you like their product, etc.