Did you actually bother to read the manifesto or did you just see a timestamp from 2006 and decided to play internet archaeologist.
Dismissing it out of hand misses the whole architectural philosophy Comodo was trying to pitch. It’s not just "we give you free stuff," it's an economic ecosystem argument where they aren't selling the antivirus to you at all. They are a Certification Authority, meaning their actual revenue comes from the "online business community" who pay for that "Trust" infrastructure, like those yellow padlocks in browsers.
The logic is pretty simple, if consumers are terrified of viruses and hackers, you won't shop online. If you don't shop online, businesses don't grow. If businesses don't grow, they don't buy SSL certificates from Comodo. By securing your desktop for free, they theoretically increase online commerce, which eventually funnels money back to them via the merchants. Distributing the software for free also builds huge brand recognition and gives them a massive user base to test innovations on, which keeps their enterprise-grade tech sharp.
Consequently, they claimed desktop security would remain free, no subscriptions, no renewal fees, because you aren't the customer; you're the environment they need to keep clean so their actual customers can thrive. So, yeah, maybe a post from 2006 is "outdated" in internet years, but the business logic was specific, secure the user to save the merchant.
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