Sophos Home: Totally free antivirus for home

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

This product slowed the hell out of browsing when I tried it a few months ago. Then a few months before that.

 

[Garzaman]

This product slowed the hell out of browsing when I tried it a few months ago. Then a few months before that.

Not here. It's always run smoothly on my system. The only thing I don't like is that it has the philosophy of "install and forget" and that it's not translated into my language. The first one doesn't really matter, because if it works (and it works), you don't need to touch anything, but the second one closes many doors since many people don't want to install an antivirus solution that literally doesn't understand.
Having said all this, I recommend this program because in my system has always responded favorably and the things it does, it does very well.
It is interesting to observe how a program behaves so differently in a system or in another system.

 

[kev216]

This product slowed the hell out of browsing when I tried it a few months ago. Then a few months before that.

Yes it's strange that a program can behave so differently on a certain machine. Sophos is really light. I don't even notice the difference between no antivirus and Sophos installed. I used Norton before using Sophos and it was slowing down my machine so much, I couldn't even open a program anymore without serious slowdown. Panda had the issue that websites were loading very slow and with Forticlient, I also had issues with page loading speeds going down. With Sophos, everything runs so smooth as it should. It's really strange that this isn't the case with everyone. It is also not that my laptop is the fastest one you can get, the only fast thing is the ssd I have;

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

Yes it's strange that a program can behave so differently on a certain machine. Sophos is really light. I don't even notice the difference between no antivirus and Sophos installed. I used Norton before using Sophos and it was slowing down my machine so much, I couldn't even open a program anymore without serious slowdown. Panda had the issue that websites were loading very slow and with Forticlient, I also had issues with page loading speeds going down. With Sophos, everything runs so smooth as it should. It's really strange that this isn't the case with everyone. It is also not that my laptop is the fastest one you can get, the only fast thing is the ssd I have;

'Web' was slowed. But keep in mind, even my VPN is 500-550Mbps. Even a tiny drop in speed is noticed.

 

[nishaddesilva]

First I want to make clear that I'm using the free version and not the beta one with the extra features.
On my system it runs very smooth. I didn't notice any slowdowns during the past months. Also when downloading files, there is no lag because of scanning. I had performance issues with lot's of other antivirus products on my laptop, but never with Sophos. Also it is very stable. I tried it the first time when it was still in beta in 2016, and even then it was very stable. No issues about that so far.
Concerning configuration and settings, there is not so much room for configuration at least not for the free version. If you try the beta (which you can use for 1 year for free after the beta stage will be over), you get more settings and protection modules. The free version, which I am using, consists of signature based protection, PUP protection, a very good web blocker, parental controls, protection based on file reputation and a completely automated HIPS module for detection of suspicious behaviour. The (in the future paid) beta version adds keylogger prevention, more sophisticated ransomware protection (i.e not only signatures as in free version) etc.
For the settings, you need to login into the dashboard at Free Antivirus for Home Networks: Secure 10 PCs and Macs Free | Sophos. Everything is managed there, there are no local settings on your machine. The settings I use for the free version are all default settings (So real time protection, web protection and PUP enabled). You can adjust the web filtering as parental control under the web filtering tab if you want, but I don't do that personally. The only setting I changed is under protection -> Web -> Download reputation, where I set the level to strict instad of recommended, to get more protection, based on file reputation.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[HunterKhajiit]

Does Sophos home contains any kind of zero-day protection?
-heurestics or bb,cloud ?
-Why auto remove threats ?

Those things keep me away from sophos home, and i need answer for these questions
Thanks you

 

[kev216]

Does Sophos home contains any kind of zero-day protection?
-heurestics or bb,cloud ?
-Why auto remove threats ?

Those things keep me away from sophos home, and i need answer for these questions
Thanks you

Yes the free version does have (limited) zero day protection. It has local signatures, but it also uses the Sophos cloud and I guess heuristics too. Detection based on file reputation shared by the community of users is also available in the settings. It also has behavioural detection, however it is fully automatic and thus there is no user interaction when it does detect some suspicious behaviour of a process on your computer. It is a kind of an automatic hips module. It does work quite well, i've seen some alerts myself where it was flagging some processes as suspicioius when I ran some zero day samples in a virtual machine. In the (not paid yet) beta version, there is some additional protection similar to hitman pro alert, but not in the free one.
The auto remove threats is something that is discussed a lot about this product. I'm not really a fan of it either, a quarantine where you can restore files would be much better. However, since one of the main things the sophos team is working on is providing zero to no false positives, it isn't a big deal for me personally (I never had a single fp the past months), however I would like to see a quarantine too. I have already reported this to the Sophos team several times, and not so long ago, they said on another forum that they are working on something like a quarantine for another product, and they maybe will implement it in Sophos Home too, but I guess it will still take some time.

 

[HunterKhajiit]

Yes the free version does have (limited) zero day protection. It has local signatures, but it also uses the Sophos cloud and I guess heuristics too. Detection based on file reputation shared by the community of users is also available in the settings. It also has behavioural detection, however it is fully automatic and thus there is no user interaction when it does detect some suspicious behaviour of a process on your computer. It is a kind of an automatic hips module. It does work quite well, i've seen some alerts myself where it was flagging some processes as suspicioius when I ran some zero day samples in a virtual machine. In the (not paid yet) beta version, there is some additional protection similar to hitman pro alert, but not in the free one.
The auto remove threats is something that is discussed a lot about this product. I'm not really a fan of it either, a quarantine where you can restore files would be much better. However, since one of the main things the sophos team is working on is providing zero to no false positives, it isn't a big deal for me personally (I never had a single fp the past months), however I would like to see a quarantine too. I have already reported this to the Sophos team several times, and not so long ago, they said on another forum that they are working on something like a quarantine for another product, and they maybe will implement it in Sophos Home too, but I guess it will still take some time.

Thank you for this info
and i hope quarantine too

 

[Hawaii007]

New free Sophos Home premium out yesterday, includes Hitmanpro.A

 

[zzz00m]

Sounds like good protection, but if still no quarantine, no bueno...

I just don't buy the line that an AV company can ever eliminate false positives 100%.

 

[zzz00m]

My preferred choice for an install and forget AV would be Bitdefender Free. It has auto quarantine, but you can restore and exclude items if necessary. That approach is certainly preferable to auto delete.

 

[HunterKhajiit]

there should be option to turn auto remove threats off

 

[Pat MacKnife]

Please remember Sophos Home premium is a paid solution.
This topic is about the free sophos home.

 

[Hawaii007]

Please remember Sophos Home premium is a paid solution.
This topic is about the free sophos home.

It is free

 

[Windows_Security]

New free Sophos Home premium out yesterday, includes Hitmanpro.A

Free Anti Virus and Web Security Download for PCs | Sophos Home

True but "expires after 30 days"

 

[Takashi]

I must totally agree that Sophos is really good ! Now they are even together with Hitman Pro , and the thing i like the most : Very light on the system !!!!

 

[Cortex]

I'I’ve been playing around with Sophos home for a while on a PC that's not critical - I'm no expert by any means but I have been on the net since Windows for Workgroups & only had one piece of malware at large on any PC and that was a worm Benjamin (years ago) so I must be doing something, maybe right? Moved over to Sophos on my critical PC, IMHO it’s pretty good with bells on?

 

[ZeroDay]

I'I’ve been playing around with Sophos home for a while on a PC that's not critical - I'm no expert by any means but I have been on the net since Windows for Workgroups & only had one piece of malware at large on any PC and that was a worm Benjamin (years ago) so I must be doing something, maybe right? Moved over to Sophos on my critical PC, IMHO it’s pretty good with bells on?

I agree it's definitely impressive. And there's more to come apparently.

 

[Cortex]

Forgot to mention a couple of things, the ability to quarantine is pretty much universal in-home AV solutions & I feel needs implementing (as others have mentioned). Also for anyone who requires a shred of privacy in their lives (or others) the ability to clear the expansive logs IMO is a must - Why these two things weren’t added in the beginning eludes me. Otherwise I think it’s first class +

 

[HarborFront]

Is Sophos's performance on those testing sites impressive?

Can't find any latest test on AV-Test and AV-Comparatives