Sophos Home Beta

I did try it on VM and:

1. Install takes quite some time.
2. It's really slow when it comes to extracted malware cleanup/detection. Many "popups" but no real/fast cleaning... + extracting zip archive is slow too.
3. Manual scanning is not fast.
4. Cleaning requires restart on some simple malware that was simply extracted, not installed. What??

Otherwise, seems like ideal solution for non tech-savvy users. Bonus is web console where you can see stuff that is blocked etc.

 

I did try it about 3 weeks ago, had no FP's and i think this is the strenght of the product + good web blocking. I don't know if there was an update in the last 3 weeks, they are working on some issues/bugfixes right now.
Soon i'll try this one again.

Latest test also No FP's https://www.av-test.org/en/antiviru...os-endpoint-security-and-control-10.3-153802/

the online dashboard is handy when other members in the family also have installed sophos and you can control their actions.

 

I don't know if it was some scheduled scanning, but after trying to download updated Skype setup:

1. Saving file after download took some time (was not instant as with Webroot before).
2. Sophos went crazy and brought the whole system down with its CPU usage...

Uninstalled for now. Seems really heavy on CPU for me (i5-750)...

 

Sophos Home 1.0.2 Final released

 

Review on ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/article/sophos-home-free-antivirus-for-windows-and-mac-users/

Running smooth for two days now, impressed with detection rate and webprotection. No nagscreens, no ads for paid solutions

 

I would like to try it too. have you noticed any slowdown? In a youtube test I saw it consumes a lot of ram.

 

Maybe a little slow down, but its acceptable. Ram is 205 MB but it doesn't feel that heavy.
I think they will try to reduce that a little ... when they recieve feedback from users.

 

Sophos Home, a free antivirus solution
By Martin Brinkmann on January 13, 2016
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/13/sophos-home-is-a-new-free-antivirus-solution/

 

God, it's taking forever to install. On a super powerful system with 10Mbit connection. And people complain avast! takes too long. Look at this thing. WTF

It's still downloading "additional security software" for 10 minutes at 10Mbit. What the hell is it downloading? ENTIRE INTERNET!?

 

I noticed the same thing on my install. Seems like it's either slow on their end or just too many files (judging from the services that are installed with this AV).

 

After it installed, I must say I quite like it. It's a bit annoying to use browser to adjust settings in program, but it works. No nags, no ads, at least for now. Watched review on Youtube and it did pretty well. I hope Sophos Home will become a part of AV-Test and AV-C tests...

 

I've tried it a couple times in the last couple of months but found slowdowns , especially browsing, however I just reinstalled, and this time in the manager's account I turned off the 3 switches in windows defender manually, before installing and Sophos seems much lighter and faster. Before I had just let the installer grey out the defender switches, maybe some sort of overlap was occurring , your mileage may vary.

 

Sophos Home: super-simple free antivirus for Windows and Mac
January 15, 2016 – by Mike Williams
http://www.softwarecrew.com/2016/01/sophos-home-super-simple-free-antivirus-for-windows-and-mac/

 

Very nice antivirus but they should mention that it downloads nearly 300 MB during installation.

Edit: Uninstalled - I don't like the browsing slowdowns ...

 

I've noticed the same. AV is kinda slower but it's ok. Browsing got significantly slower compared to other AV's. And the fact that excluding files from detection is INCREDIBLY clumsy.

 

I've send them feedback that my computer performance has dropped down, i just hope they fix something to make it lighter.

 

I downloaded it and tried to install, but got a message that it is not compatible with Windows Vista os. Oh well.

Another thing regarding Sophos. I was in Staples looking at some computers, and asked what av's are preloaded on the comps. The salesman said some are loaded with McAfee, others with Norton. He also said they have a house-based security center option, which is $100 a year, which uses Sophos. He informed me that Staples is a retailer for Sophos for non-business customers. Didn't know this.

 

I got to admit that I'm actually happy about this. It means that they don't have to support older operating systems and with that, they can develop newer detection mechanisms etc. Plus the amount of work to support pre-historical OSes goes into developing newer stuff.

 

I installed this on my main pc yesterday and haven't had any issues so far. my current antivirus subscription ends early next month so testing this on one machine. i think i am going to use this on all my machines.
this is quite a high spec computer. I7 4700k 16gb ddr ram. two 120gb ssd and one 2tb hdd. 2x 770 nvidia gpu

download didn't take to long. it checks for updates every hour.

full scan detected punkbuster as potentially unwanted so I allowed it via the web console as i need it to play battlefield.

I agree about the extra time freed up by not supporting an older OS.

 

For me its a little to heavy on my machine with 8 GB Ram, my wife has also 8 GB and my daughters have a laptop with only 4 GB Ram so that would lead their machine to a crawl .... but if they improve performance with at least 50% i will try sophos again, because i was impressed with its detection/protection from this free AV.

 

@Spokesman Even 4GB of RAM should be more than enough for any antivirus. If this is slowing down your computer it will be due to high CPU and or disk usage, not due to how much RAM the antivirus is using.

 

Thanks roger to help thinking, i hope they will improve their product

 

Installed on a Lenovo T420, not exactly a powerhouse. Seems light and fast. Intel Core i5 2520m, 6GB, onboard graphics...

 

Regarding the question of if it is strictly signature based, I would look to this blog post, where they specifically mention behavior based detection. https://blogs.sophos.com/2015/12/23...way-to-protect-your-family-online/#more-30437

I have been using it for several weeks and am so far impressed with it. Not that resource heavy and no bugs as far as I have experienced.

 

Is light on my machine to BUT is a bit ustable on cpu some times..... is see 1% 2% 4% 5% when idle or when just browse the web.... cpu test it with very stong i7-950 win 10 64bit
The web filter is very strong and for sure have silent behavior blocker. This is the best free solution for a family.