Sophos Anti Virus - free for home users

Not sure if it's been mentioned here before, but Sophos Anti Virus is now free on the Mac for home use.
Sophos download site

In reference to www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/02/sophos_mac_anti_virus/:

The UK-based firm sees the freebie Mac scanner as a medium-term commitment, even though the product is not there to make money, and it will cost Sophos to run a dedicated support forum and field queries. Unlike freemium scanner outfits such as AVG there are no plans to convert users onto paid-for consumer versions of Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac.

Might be worth considering if you are looking for a virus protection software (I've been using the corporate version for a few years now, with no problems).

Or not.

Thanks very much for the heads-up. Too many Mac users are blindly complacent about the possibility of malware; they would be well advised to take advantage of this offer.

But many more of us are even more aware that commercial solutions invariably make the matter worse.

Anyone with genuine concerns would be better served downloading ClamXav, which has the massive advantage that it is not baitware to lure users into an expensive and pointless "solution".

And to the OP: can you confirm that you are not and never have been connected with Sophos?

Sophos is a well-respected company, particularly in the business sector. That they are making their anti-malware software available to home users is good news. The more companies and organizations researching malware the better.

Several commercial companies provide free solutions in the Windows market without there being any question of them "luring" users into expensive solutions. I've no reason to think that Mac users are any less sophisticated in this respect than Windows ones.

Unless you have any substantiation for your unwarranted slur against the OP I think you should withdraw it. His posting history shows no hint of pushing products for particular suppliers.

I have this free software installed on three Macs and while I still do not believe there to be much of a risk at the moment on this platform, I don't think it does any harm to be careful in the same way that I am careful about everything else on my Macs.

Apart from a few teething problems - I installed it almost as soon as it was released - this antivirus software seems to work very well with little or no obvious impact on performance, and it did catch a Windows virus on a usb stick my daughter brought over and plugged into my Mac Pro.

As far as I am concerned, top marks to Sophos for giving us this free software and even if they do want to tempt us into a paid product later, no one of us is obliged to buy it. Also we often hear complaints about bloatware, but this Sophos offering is far from that I'm pleased to say.

it did catch a Windows virus on a usb stick my daughter brought over and plugged into my Mac Pro

That's one of the advantages of multi-platform software. As well as protecting against native malware it helps to stop the spread of non-native viruses. If you'd emailed that file to someone you would have been spreading a Windows virus - something any good net citizen will want to avoid.

If anyone is interested, there are reviews here of all the available anti-malware products for OS X. You can make up your own mind from this which one is best for your purposes.

Thanks for that, installed and running a scan as I type...

I've used ClamXAV up until now but, although I've no complaints about it, it's one of those programs I've never really got on with... hopefully this will be better.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

And to the OP: can you confirm that you are not and never have been connected with Sophos?

My only link to Sophos is that I have been a very happy (business) customer of Sophos for about 5 years.