In Comodo there is the very simple:

1. "Enable Alerts for Loopback Requests" and
2. "Show Tray Animation"

1. stops the constant blinking when BM is loaded (which is rarely as I only use service installs)
2. This, when not ticked, only suppresses the tray animation. IF there is something to alert it does anyway through pop-ups.

If it's not in the paid for ZA, it's time to consider the free "Comodo Firewall Pro". Autoupdates and has a memory footprint of just 10mb and a feature to run a full off-line AV scan of it's own as a secondary check to a primary AV. Now on all my systems use Comodo and it's able to recognize Avast AV which ZA did not with 7.1.078.... even Windows identifies that package.