It's been just less than a week since Sophos caused a stir in the security world by releasing a free anti-virus product for Mac home users.
Yes, free as in "properly free". Not a trial version, or an eval, or something that would nag you repeatedly into purchasing a "pro" version - but really, truly free and fully featured.
And the response has been terrific - with the number of people downloading Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition exceeding our expectations, the product being named a "Staff Pick" on Apple Downloads (and making the number one position in its Networking & Security section).
Now the folks at SecureMac have published the first extensive review of our free Mac anti-virus product, including a test against Mac-specific malware.
I'm delighted to report that Sophos's free Mac product receives a solid thumbs-up, and is awarded "5/5 across the board" in the review.
So, if you're still dithering about whether you should run an anti-virus on your Mac at home, then do read the review... and then download our free Mac anti-virus. :-)
I have been using the Mac client for several months now, and am glad to see Sophos making this available to home users. And, the price is certainly right!
~EdT.
Great..I thought. At last..I thought. I downloaded it and began the first scan... I have 546,381 files and it stops every time at 544,511...Why?
peebee
Hi Peebee, please post support questions in the free Mac anti-virus community forum: http://openforum.sophos.com/macav
I believe there's an advisory there of people things can try if they experience a slow-down while doing a manual scan.
Thanks!
I would have given you the money I gave to McAfee for a Sophos Antivirus for my Windows home computer, but there's none available. Small Business begins at $136. Why are Macs so favored as to get free Sophos?
Try avast for windows. It is free.
How do I manually clean the results of a scan?
Best to visit our support community at http://openforum.sophos.com/MacAv for support with the product.
I'm afraid we can't do tech support up here on Naked Security.
Hope that helps
Why is sophos free? Are they using the information they gather and selling it? Where do they make their money?
All is explained at
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/12/free-m...
We've made the software available for free purely to raise our brand awareness. No strings attached.
Sophos, with its world headquarters near the university city of Oxford in the UK, has a highly regarded world-wide reputation for supplying sophisticated security software for large commercial computer systems. Big corporations including banks rely on Sophos software. The company is, therefore, big enough to be generous in offering Home editions of their software for free. The various business editions of their products obviously attract an appropriate commercial fee, it is as simple as that.
I am not directly connected with Sophos, but as an observer for many years I admire the sheer quality of their products. It would seem that the same attention to detail is evident in their free Mac Home Edition offering, including being designed from the bottom-up as a proper Mac OS X application and not a Windows hand-me-down bodge up.