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Sophos Home for Mac

By Sophos Free Editors' Rating

Editors' Review

Download.com Staff Sep 1, 2014

Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home Edition is a complete antivirus solution for your Mac, and it gives you the ability to review files identified as threats before they are removed. With this free program in place, you can have confidence that your Mac is not vulnerable to threats from most viruses and malware.

Pros

Straightforward interface: Through this app's streamlined interface, you can easily see how your scan is progressing and what threats the program has detected. And when the scan is complete, you can view a list of quarantined items and decide whether or not to delete some or all of them.

Decent detection: Sophos did detect several legitimate threats through scanning. They were clearly displayed in the Quarantine Manager, and we could view the results of scanning even while the scan was still in progress.

Cons

Long scans: The program takes a long time to scan. In fact, our initial testing scan wasn't even halfway done after 20 minutes, which seems excessive when compared to other similar programs.

Freezing issues: The app froze several times during testing, usually when it was close to finishing a scan. Since the scans take so long to begin with, this was especially frustrating.

Bottom Line

Sophos Antivirus does its job even if the process isn't always terribly smooth. It does do a decent job identifying threats, and results are clearly displayed in the Quarantine Manager. The program is free to use without limits.

Full Specifications

What's new in version 1.1.3

  • A "Lightbox" to announce new features
  • Improvements to installation reliability
  • You can change the names of computers, and correct your own name
  • A full disk scan will now respect exclusions on Macs
  • Color palette improvements for people with impaired vision
  • Updated help system
  • Improvements to the user interface and registration experience

General

Release April 13, 2016
Date Added April 13, 2016
Version 1.1.3

Operating Systems

Operating Systems Mac OS X 10.11, Macintosh, Mac OS X 10.9, Mac OS X 10.10, Mac OS X 10.8
Additional Requirements None

Popularity

Total Downloads 268,598
Downloads Last Week 9
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User Reviews

3/5
62 User Votes
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Developer's Description

Sophos Home protects with both signature based and signature-less/behavioral-based (zero-day) detection including on-demand malware scan, on-access malware scan, malicious URL blocking, phishing protection, and potentially unwanted app detection. Users of Sophos Home can easily manage security settings for computers located anywhere from any web browser. Add computers in seconds, manage policies, and perform scans on any computer under management. The management tools are tamper-resistant with auto-logout and password protection. And there are no ads, pop-ups, or prompts to enter credit card information.

Sophos Home protects users from online threats and unsuitable content. Users can block access to sites that may contain inappropriate content or malicious software. Web Category Access lets you control access to certain types of websites, deciding what to allow, warn, or block, customizable for each computer. As a free product, Sophos Home is supported by our Sophos Community. Through the Sophos Community, users can ask questions and receive answers via moderated forums. They can also find answers to questions using Sophos Home FAQs and knowledge base articles.

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