Sophos Home: Totally free antivirus for home

oldschool

Level 81
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Mar 29, 2018
7,043
About ram usage?

Multiple processes run ~ 75 MB - 100 MB during normal use. Running a full scan adds 150 MB. The RAM usage didn't bother me but the 30%+ CPU during a full scan did. The only other option is a contextual scan. Windows Defender full scan is also a resource hog but at least it has the quick scan option, which is very silent. I never notice its automatic scans.
 

stefanos

Level 28
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Oct 31, 2014
1,712
Multiple processes run ~ 75 MB - 100 MB during normal use. Running a full scan adds 150 MB. The RAM usage didn't bother me but the 30%+ CPU during a full scan did. The only other option is a contextual scan. Windows Defender full scan is also a resource hog but at least it has the quick scan option, which is very silent. I never notice its automatic scans.
It is ok now. The old verision during normal consume 300 mb
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

IMO Web Filtration quality for these products is something like this: Forticlient->Kaspersky->Sophos, usually in that order. Kaspersky has a very robust web protection system, Forticlient has incredible database of malicious sites and traits from the Fortiguard service that gathers them from around 100 million reference points. (keeping in mind they also utilize Norton telemetry now) Sophos has a great heuristic system, not as good as Kaspersky, but very good.
 
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ForgottenSeer 72227

My micro review -

I took Sophos Home Free for a quick spin today and here is my take. The installer is big and takes time (with my 18 mbps service), otherwise it's a trouble-free process. It's fairly lightweight when browsing normally and it has decent network protection. It lacks the machine learning module of the premium version and its full scans are really slow which spike CPU significantly - 30% on my machine. There are no other scan options. It doesn't invade your privacy and it's free. Paired with another software like VoodooShield or OS Armor it makes a good free setup. It's definitely better than the early free version but I just couldn't justify keeping it in place of Windows Defender.

Good review!

I agree that Sophos has done some great work on the current version. They've improved on the overall system performance as well as it's impact on loading web pages. It definitely has a slow full scan very similar to WD, but most people don't run full scans on a daily basis, so it won't be too much of an issue IMO. What I like most about SH/SHP is exactly like you said, it's simple, it works, it's not in your face with ad's and such, it's basically a very no nonsense just works in the background AV, very similar to WD. I agree that with the improvements to WD, Sophos Home doesn't offer much more than WD IMO, but if WD doesn't work out for you, or you don't like using it, SH with OSA is a very good/solid setup for someone looking for a free config.

SHP does had some more features that make it a very solid option as well. Pair it up with OSA, VS, or the like and you have a very strong setup IMO.


It is ok now. The old verision during normal consume 300 mb

They have definitely improved on this front for sure. I think SHP consumes a bt more due to the M/L and HMPA features, but the overall system impact and it's impact on web browsing has improved quite a bit from version 1.
 

oldschool

Level 81
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Well-known
Mar 29, 2018
7,043
If you don't upgrade to premium then you have the free version, is this a good protection compared with avast or not that good ?
I have used version 1 at the beginning but that was realy heavy ...

I don't do malware testing so I can't really say if it's as good as Avast, but it is lighter than early versions. I think you can rely on the recent posts above to decide. Decent web filtering and no data harvesting but no machine learning module like premium.
 

davisd

Level 3
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Well-known
Jan 27, 2019
107
Free version is not even worth discussing, go Premium or stay with the inbuilt Windows Defender, it's much better. Other similiar top brand Free AV's offer more options and protection modules, like Kaspersky Security Cloud Free.
 

upnorth

Moderator
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Staff Member
Malware Hunter
Well-known
Jul 27, 2015
5,456
The free version is IMO more then worth testing if one is actually curious. Thats normally how one get basic experience. Sophos Home Free version also comes with all the Premium features for the first 30 days, as previous described in this thread.
 
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