Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Review
Mac’s don’t get viruses. Right? Wrong. Not only do Mac’s get the occasional Mac virus (because yes, they do exist.) but you probably don’t even realize that there is a 33% chance your Mac is carrying around Windows viruses as well. This means that while you may not be affected by them, they’re at least taking up some valuable space on your hard drive, and you may be unknowingly sharing those same viruses with your Windows using friends. So how do you protect your Mac? Its a big investment, and you certainly don’t want it wrecked by a virus you could have easily avoided. There’s an easy way, and the best part? It’s free. But not everything that’s free is a good value, so read on to see if Sophos can help protect you!
The short answer is yes, Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac can help protect the important information, as well as your investments in media, apps, and more that you put on your computer. Sophos is easy to set up (almost too easy, actually, but more on that later) and seems to protect you well without interrupting your online services, which is not an easy task. For me though, Sophos failed in one important area: performance.
First, the setup!
Downloading Sophos’ free Anti-Virus software couldn’t be easier. Whether you follow our link, google it, or go directly to their site, they really make finding, downloading and installing the software quick and painless, which is nice as people definitely won’t go too far out of their way to protect themselves. There’s no spam or bloatware to avoid, nothing to really worry about, which is what you really expect from a reputable anti-virus software company like Sophos. Once you install, you’ll see the Sophos shield in your Mac’s Menu bar.
Actual Use
Sort of surprisingly, that’s basically all you need to do. Click the shield and click Scan Local Drives to scan your hard drive for any viruses that may be lurking unknowingly in your system. While convenient, this simplicity is a little limiting as well. Things like firewall management, realtime scan management, spam and spyware search, and advanced scheduling just aren’t available in Sophos. You can, however, be confident in its virus-sniffing capabilities.
Sophos Anti-Virus Main Screen
Additionally, if you click that same shield, you can click Open Sophos Anti-Virus, then navigate to Sophos Anti-Virus -> Preferences in your Menu bar to see the full range of options. While these don’t include the above mentioned options, there are a couple useful tools, like the ability to exclude certain folders from being scanned. This can save you lots of time scanning if you know for a fact that certain folders are safe, but I definitely recommend running the full scan without exclusions for at least the first full system scan you do.
Exclude folders from your virus scan.
The biggest category in which the software lacked though, was its speed. This software slowed my MacBook down immensely. I actually turned it off almost right away, only of course to turn it back on later to write this review. Really though, while its tough to judge to a certain extent as we’d at least hope that once initial scanning was complete the software would speed up, it definitely lagged behind other software I’ve used in terms of overall sluggishness.
Wrap-Up
So Sophos isn’t perfect. Honestly though, what is? If you said nothing, you’re right. And with its ease of use coupled with its thorough anti-virus search, its definitely not a bad choice for someone looking to do the occasional (is once a month too much to ask?) scan, even if its just for the sake of their PC-loving friends. For the price of $0, ITK can recommend Sophos to all its’ Mac users. While it might not be the 100% complete solution, for most people this will be completely fine, at least for as long as Macs make up a minority of the personal computer market. So hit up the source link if you’re interested, and let us know in the comments what you think!
Categories: Mac, Reviews, Security, Software