
You may not have heard of Sophos, because the company aims its products at business users (and with a price tag to match). But not only does Sophos make a version of its security and antivirus software for home users, it's actually available free of charge too. And it uses the same core engine as the commercial version.
So if you don't have up-to-date antivirus software, why not give Sophos Home a try? And if you've recently upgraded to Windows 10 and are using the built-in Windows Defender, but secretly yearn for something with a bit more power, you have nothing to lose.
To try Sophos Home, just head to https://home.sophos.com and register for the download. The installer, plus the software it subsequently downloads, runs to approximately 70 MB and should work on all recent versions of Windows (I tried it on Windows 10). Because the installer is not a stand-alone file it was not possible to test it with VirusTotal, but it passed all tests on my own PC and worked just fine.
Comments
The first thing you see when you click on the home.sophos.com link is a choice to either create an account or log in with your existing account. Personally, I'd rather look around without creating an account first. Second, below the form to create your account is tiny grey text that you can't copy/paste, an agreement that Sophos will collect and process unspecified personal data. Why do they make this so hard to see? It doesn't sound like a company I want to deal with, even for a free product. Thanks but no thanks.
I tried it for a day,,,after uninstalling Comodo and Avast,, Went back to Panda and found 21 problems after the others had done deep scans...
Panda is my flavor of the day...
Sophos may be fine for the paranoid but my experience in the corporate environment has been average. I agree with others that say it slows down the browser and uses a lot of resources. I think there are better alternatives for the home user.
I installed Sophos January 26th but un-installed again yesterday. Both my browsers (Firefox and Chrome) became very sluggish. Finally they would barely load my Startpage but nothing more.
After uninstalling everything is back to normal.
Rob,
You mentioned that you have tried it, however -
"I gots to know" (Dirty Harry)
What program do you currently use on your home PC ?
Isn't there an offline installer
Sophos won't install if there is another AV or firewall running at the time you try to install. Does Sophos ALSO contain a firewall? If not, can I run the Comodo Firewall (not their A-V) alongside it?
Most of the range of free products can be found on https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools.aspx
Sophos has two firewall products - [Edit] which may well be the same product with different names - but neither is designed to run as a firewall on your Windows PC. They are designed to run on a standalone PC which means that they may be able to run in a virtual machine on your local PC. They are UTM (Unified Threat Management) solutions running on a network gateway so all users of your network are protected. They provide a lot more than a firewall and include web filtering, mail filtering, VPN, remote access, etc. These are corporate solutions which you can use it at home rather than home solutions for single computers:
You ask;
Does Sophos ALSO contain a firewall?
The Sophos web site and/or the Help files in the software or Sophos support should answer that question.
From the link, it also appears Sophos calls for access to personal files. Maybe somewhat of an issue for some gents.
Cheerio!
Ian, not sure if you are aware, but they also have a free version for Mac.
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx
Keith R