Sophos Home Free Antivirus Reviews/Tests on Youtube

[Hangtooth]

Been trying out Sophos Free Antivirus this week. Had what I felt were a few false positives on the initial scan, and it deleted them without mercy. I guess that's a good thing, but had it been an irreplaceable document I would have choked.

Gave it a second go today, and initial scan comes up clean and smooth sailing on 2 machines so far with only Sophos Home Antivirus and Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free.

I am giving this AV a shot pretty much on the basis of the 3 videos I could find on youtube that test its capabilities. I am not the maker of any of these, I am just passing the links along for folks who might want to check out Sophos Home. It's really hard to find any reviews on this AV as it's so new.

Dec 2 by The PC Security Channel - already posted here:
Video Review - Sophos Home Free Antivirus Review (From The PC Security Channel)

Dec 18 by DeHaxor4evr - 2 parts



Dec 19 by DragonDanPCMan


Enjoy! Please feel free to move to video reviews, but I didn't feel comfy posting there as I did not make these videos.

 

[Pat MacKnife]

What do you think about its detection rate ?
Also in video it seems to find many malware, even when you run an .exe it blocks many threads
And others malware files are being disinfected and thats why windows can't run these installers anymore
I like it, but its a little heavy on system and slows down internet/surfing ....

 

[Hangtooth]

I ran it for a few days and it found nothing, but then again I didn't do anything except normal safe browsing and downloading from legitimate sites etc. I really do like it, but until I see it tested for real by the big sites that independantly test AVs, it's not worth the risk when accompanied by the lack of control. If it has perfect detection and no FPs great, but otherwise it's a problem waiting to happen.

 

[Pat MacKnife]

Here are some results from their endpoint protection

AV-TEST – The Independent IT-Security Institute
AV-TEST – The Independent IT-Security Institute

Sophos has said that the Home version is similar to their endpointprotection / detection, with a little less options, but with the same detection rate.
Also see this chart in Nov 2015 (98,8%) AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Real World Protection Test Overview

 

[Hangtooth]

Thanks very much @Pat MacKnife ! If Avira Pro lets me down or user control ceases to matter to me, I'll be back to Sophos - good stuff!

 

[Deleted member 2913]

Sophos Home doesn't have a quarantine feature & SH deletes the detected threats...not good.

 

[Pat MacKnife]

From what i've seen Sophos deletes the malware perfectly, only other programs are classified as pup (then you can allow/add to exceptions or clean it as malware) but yes it could be better with Quarantine and the possibillty to restore files ... but there are almost no FP with Sophos.