Free version of Sophos is limited and only for 30 day’s.
Cant speak about Avast. If its free you are the product…
I had a 200 user Sophos license at my previous job. As I recall we renewed every 2 years, and there were never any big surprises in the renewal price of the enterprise av software.
They did continue to improve their product line and offer new features & services which would increase the cost if/when we chose to upgrade.
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Was that for the endpoint protection for consumers like we are talking about here?
So far they only offered new features and upgrades at a cost for their firewalls.
Not sure if that’s the name - it’s been a couple of years. The original product included their Enterprise Console software running on a Windows Server that handled installation, updates, etc… It handled most windows installs automatically, Macs were more hands on.
As I recall, we were talking to them about replacing the on-site server with their cloud management system and possibly adding some additional security services. This was during the time I was training my replacement and I’m not sure what, if any, additions they made.
My point was I considered them an good company to work with: No major prices increase during the 6 - 9 years I worked with them. No high pressure sales - just the normal things you expect from their sales department 
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For us, at the time, there were other issues too. We block groups of IP addresses assigned to bad actor countries at our firewall. In order to use Kaspersky’s ticketing system, it relied on servers in Russia which we had globally blocked. Not an issue for an individual as they would never open a ticket, but for an Enterprise company that needed support that they paid for, it was an undesirable situation.
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Have you had issues with your mouse pointer disappearing? This seems to start to happen after installing Sophos on my Mac.
I’ve also tested out the web filter to see if it works. It works great on the PC but on my Mac it claims to have blocked the content in the web portal but the Mac can go to those pages no problem.
Something else I found interesting. On Malwarebytes it blocked a site that was know for fraud/malware but Sophos did not. It could mean nothing, but this is important to me as I often have to check backlink profiles and most of the spam links are shady and the extra protection would be nice. To be fair, Malwarebytes on the Mac did not block the site but it seems the malware that is on the site would only affect PC. Sophos for Mac or PC did not block the URL either way. If anyone is curious here is the link, ( hxxp://payd aydcr(dot)com/ ) I’ve skewed the link so it doesn’t get any love from Google and is not a working link to avoid giving that nasty site a backlink.
Avast is free at the basic version but they are offering paid packages that offer far more paid services like camera protection, bank protection, getting your machine faster etc etc…
Up until yesterday I was using Dr. Antivirus which is found on the Mac App Store. Was using it for months. Yesterday, I downloaded the free trial of Malwarebytes and it found the PUP.BrowserHistoryStealer threat which is a core component of Dr. Antivirus. Basically, Dr. Antivirus steals your full browser history and uploads it to their servers! Trend Micro is the company that owns this software.
Yet another example of unvetted software getting into the Mac App Store.
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https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2018/09/mac-app-store-apps-are-stealing-user-data/
“It could be argued that it is useful for antivirus software to collect certain limited browsing history leading up to a malware/webpage detection and blocking. But it is very hard to argue to exfiltrate the entire browsing history of all installed browsers regardless of whether the user has encountered malware or not. In addition, there was nothing in the app to inform the user about this data collection, and there was no way to opt out of this data collection.”
Also:
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I use Sophos home, its free and the bonus is that, whilst a Mac specific program, it picks up Windows virii as well which means your Mac (which doesn’t get infected itself) doesn’t pass any virus onto Windows users. That’s important if you are using your Mac for business. Sophos has just migrated to ‘Sophos Home’ which allows you to put the program on five different computers and manage all of them from one web-based login. You get 30 days free before the completely free version reverts to a basic anti-virus (The family filters are only available in the paid version)
Basically, if you are an adult, the free version does all you need and has little to no system impact.
Worth considering.
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Absolutely agree. Beyond Malware it has other good features
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FYI TomsGuide just posted their top antivirus utilities for 2019: BitDefender came out on top, Kaspersky came in a close #2 (and is cheaper), and the pick for best free antivirus was Avast.
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I have a hard time trusting websites like this when they make money off there recommendations.
And what they said about Malwarebytes puzzles me
and because its malware-blocking skills haven’t been evaluated, we don’t know how good it is at protecting your Mac
Okay? Isn’t that their job to evaluate it then? How do they know the other’s work well if they’re not testing them to see how it does against malware? They’re just regurgitating someone else’s opinions and not actually doing the testing themselves.
I mean come on, they rank Norton above Sophos!
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I generally find credible Tom’s Guide reviews. A lot of good people from other Mac sites went there, like Jason Snell and Caitlin McGarry and 1-2 others from Macworld. I didn’t understand that comment about MalwareBytes (which is what I use) either, but I think they were right to give props to Avast and Kaspersky, and to avoid mentioning the once-excellent Avira and ClamXav.
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I think phishing is now the main problem and anti virus doesn’t close off a lot of that anyway? I don’t know, I despair at how careless a lot of us are. None of us are failsafe. I am not sure if I had a virus once on my router in fact. I don’t even know if that is likely or possible for that to happen via Macs. Maybe somebody here knows?
I haven’t noticed any performance impact on the many machines where we have installed Sophos.
I have seen Sophos catch bad stuff where Malwarebytes sat silent.
Given the troublesome reputation of Kaspersky I would never install them.
Then there is the question what affiliate link pays the most…
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Would you recommend loading antivirus like Avast then? I haven’t done so, partly because in my own experience nearly every problem I deal with is ‘user error’ that is phishing problems. I did wonder one time whether my home router had a virus, is that possible? I don’t know the tech weeds on this.
Do you recommend using Sophos then? or Avast. I haven’t used any anti virus for years on Mac.
I only use MalwareBytes to manually check my Mac, running it every week or two. I don’t pay. MacExpert is right about the problematic nature of Kaspersky (and its relationship with the Russian government - and its involvement in the unmasking of an American NSA security researcher - as described earlier in this thread), and I wouldn’t use them personally, but they generally are considered to have the best or top-2 AV products out there. I like Sophos too, and they have a great AV rep, and a lot of smart, experienced cookies working there.
That said, I don’t personally feel the need for protecting against ransomware, and I use other products to protect against phishing (when web browsing, at any rate). If I weren’t sufficiently happy with Malwarebytes/free, I’d probably be using Avast/free.
FYI if you have an Eero Plus sub you get the pay version of MalwareBytes included with your subscription.
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Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I take it that if you use MalwareBytes you can run it occasionally and it won’t have any ‘slow down’ effects? That is partly what concerns me. I did have Eero but no longer at home.