I’m a huge skeptic when it comes to anti-virus solutions on the Mac but Sophos have launched a free version of it’s anti-virus software and I have to concede, it’s pretty good. Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is a free and slighter slimmed-down version of Sophos Anti Virus for Mac.
The latter was somewhat disappointing but this version is something of an improvement being less bloated and of course, with the added bonus that it’s absolutely free.
Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is designed to protect your Mac from the latest viruses, trojans, worms and malicious spyware. It features an on-access scanner that provides constant real-time protection while consuming the minimum of system resources. In fact, it hardly consumes any CPU while it scans in the background which is a big improvement on Sophos Anti Virus for Mac. In addition, you don’t need to restart your Mac after installation as is common with many anti-virus programs.
As soon as it is installed, Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition starts working immediately symbolized by the black Sophos shield in your menu bar. If you think you have viruses, you can scan your Mac manually. Just click the black shield and select Scan Local Drives:
If a threat is found, click the black shield and select Open Quarantine Manager.
There are obviously some downsides to this free version. Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition doesn’t provide network scanning for example and many of the advanced scanning options available in Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac are missing.
Overall however, Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is one of the better anti-virus solutions for Mac. Is this a free discreet anti-virus that Mac users could actually grow to like?
