"Sophos Home" Antivirus - First impressions

gothic

gothic

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Staff member
I was having a natter with Terry on the phone yesterday, and our talk turned to the various internet security packages available. As is our want we both feverishly googled anything and everything to do with anti-virus and anti-malware.
I stumbled upon a software I hadn't used since my professional days, when I had a number of machines to secure within my business, Sophos. Back then it was only available to the business customer and cost an arm and a leg (probably more if you weren't paying attention!) but it was recognised as being one of the very best.
To my surprise I saw that Sophos was offering a free to home user anti-virus and anti-malware package that also included anti-ransomware. I did a lot of googling then and read reviews and researched comparative results, coming to the conclusion that it was definitely worth a try.
Now, my main experience with (current) free anti-virus (Avast/AVG/Panda etc) is that it is grossly overweight, slowing you machine down and being offensively intrusive (lots of popups trying to get you to upgrade to their paid solutions.
So now for Sophos Home

Their Homepage
Review One
Review Two
There are many more reviews. Sophos Home doesn't score as highly as a couple of the more expensive "paid" solutions, but hey! it's free and for me the scores I saw were more than sufficient, and in most cases better than I could have expected.

It is very easy to install, it is exceptionally easy to use and, most importantly for me, it runs comfortably on both my Mac and my Windows machines WITHOUT ANY noticable hit on performance, even during a system scan. The highest CPU resource usage during a scan will only ever reach 25%.

There are NO interfering popups to upgrade, or any adverts. It simply does it's job.

I emphasize that I have only installed this yesterday, and that these are my first impressions, but from what I see "Sophos Home" will become the only free anti-virus package that I will recommend.
 
Tony,

The Sophos free anti virus software was top security free software in Which's review . I was going to install but I held off because I read that it disables the Windows Defender firewall so I did not proceed . Did you notice that when you installed and if you did have you managed to ensure that you have an active firewall in place after you installed. Thank you for any information you can provide.
 
Just had a look and see that both the Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall are still running comfortably alongside Sophos Home.
Hope that helps :)
 
thank you Tony they must have solved the issue with the software since I saw the posts about the firewall issue . I think I will proceed with installing
 
Whoa!!!!
I mis-informed you. It leaves the firewall running, but does stop the Defender service, my bad, BUT the anti-malware in Sophos is recognised as far stronger than that in Defender so I personally am quite happy for it to do so.
Sorry for the bad.
 
Thank you Tony for pointing that out so there is still that issue over Windows defender service . As you state the anti malware software is stronger than Defender and I don't think Which would recommend if the loss of Defender was seen as a major threat .
 
I'm with AVG and have been wanting to change for a while, when you say easy to install.... How easy? and how easy is it to get rid of AVG?
 
Thanks, Tony. I've been uneasy with Windows Defender, which came bundled with my PC, but have been dissatisfied with other security software. I've just finished installing Sophos and am looking forward to not noticing my security software.
 
The one and only drawback I have found is that when you ask it to do a scan, it does........ on steroids!
Don't worry though, you can minimise the dialogue and won't notice a thing. It simply takes a looooooooong time, it scans EVERYTHING on your computer, which I suppose is a very good thing.
 
gothic said:
The one and only drawback I have found is that when you ask it to do a scan, it does........ on steroids!
Don't worry though, you can minimise the dialogue and won't notice a thing. It simply takes a looooooooong time, it scans EVERYTHING on your computer, which I suppose is a very good thing.
Click to expand...

If it doesn't require user interaction while it's scanning, I'll run it overnight.
 
Tony,

When you read the information on the site about the install nerves are jangled by the following text

Note: You must remove any existing antivirus software before you install the Sophos Home Software. Sophos Home will not install unless antivirus software has been completely removed.

Did you find that concerning in anyway ? I assume that for the time it is installing then you could be potentially exposed in terms of any threats your current AV software may have normally blocked . Thank you for any information
 
captain clutterbuck said:
Tony,

When you read the information on the site about the install nerves are jangled by the following text

Note: You must remove any existing antivirus software before you install the Sophos Home Software. Sophos Home will not install unless antivirus software has been completely removed.

Did you find that concerning in anyway ? I assume that for the time it is installing then you could be potentially exposed in terms of any threats your current AV software may have normally blocked . Thank you for any information
Click to expand...

It is standard practice captain, they can tend to clash and cause problems, most decent a/v software will disable defender automatically, the worst one to get shot off is McAfee, it is almost as bad as trying to get shot of a nasty virus
 
captain clutterbuck said:
Tony,

When you read the information on the site about the install nerves are jangled by the following text

Note: You must remove any existing antivirus software before you install the Sophos Home Software. Sophos Home will not install unless antivirus software has been completely removed.

Did you find that concerning in anyway ? I assume that for the time it is installing then you could be potentially exposed in terms of any threats your current AV software may have normally blocked . Thank you for any information
Click to expand...
Not at all, virtually each and every other internet suite states exactly the same.
The biggest difference is that Sophos works perfectly well alongside Malwarebytes or Spybot (tried them both this afternoon) my reason for testing being that both these are really very effective at removal on-the-fly.
 
maltrab said:
It is standard practice captain, they can tend to clash and cause problems, most decent a/v software will disable defender automatically, the worst one to get shot off is McAfee, it is almost as bad as trying to get shot of a nasty virus
Click to expand...

A long time ago I installed McAfee and almost instantly regretted it. I used Revo Uninstaller to remove all traces of it, even from the registry.
 
gothic said:
Not at all, virtually each and every other internet suite states exactly the same.
The biggest difference is that Sophos works perfectly well alongside Malwarebytes or Spybot (tried them both this afternoon) my reason for testing being that both these are really very effective at removal on-the-fly.
Click to expand...

To be clear then Tony I not only have both Spybot and Malwarebytes installed but also Avast, McAfee security scan plus[ I also have McAfee Web Advisor which prevents accessing suspect sites and it may be a plus to retain that] and AVG so if I remove the latter three I should then be able to install Sophos , or did you have to remove Spybot and Malwarebytes first , install Sophos and then reinstall the other two products . Really sorry to labour the point I just want to ensure I get the sequence of events correct and don't have to reinstall or retain anything unnecessarily . Thank you again for any help you can offer
 
Sorry Tony I have just re-read the Sophos page and clearly the software blocks suspect sites so McAfee Web Advisor is not needed so in essence if I uninstall AVG, McAfee and Avast I should be able to install Sophos .
 
Thanks for all this, will take note as I do have a newer Windows machine as well. Not yet installed - running Windows 10 and will need anti-virus etc. Mainly as I can do soem of my phtot stuff easier on this and soem stuff I share with others has problems of transfer.
 
captain clutterbuck said:
Sorry Tony I have just re-read the Sophos page and clearly the software blocks suspect sites so McAfee Web Advisor is not needed so in essence if I uninstall AVG, McAfee and Avast I should be able to install Sophos .
Click to expand...
What I have to be careful of is that as I service and maintain a fair number of customer computers, anything I recommend to them doesn't have compatability issues. The type(s) of customer that I have are those less young people (average age of about 130!!) who don't have a clue about security (they'll click anything and everything), and also the ones with teenagers who's little angels will persist on visiting all the music/porn/gambling sites, bypassing the parental controls their parents or I have set. So, as I stated before, Malwarebytes and Spybot are compatable as they HAVE to work with anything else that I install. They are the very last line of defense that I have in my arsenal.
 
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