Sophos releases free Mac anti-virus package

< a href="http://www.antivirus-review.org/">antivirus programVirus scanner and Antivirus software reviews and comparison.Despite security improvements of operating systems the internet is not becoming a safer place. Compared to a simple Antivirus, an Internet Security Suite offers comprehensive security protection for your computer.

This did it for me - not installing.

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac: Home Edition
If you have any questions, ask other users of the software for help by visiting the FreeTalk forum. Sophos does not provide technical support by telephone or email for Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac: Home Edition.

It's great to see another free anti-malware (the proper term) app for Mac, along side iAntiVirus and ClamXav.

However, the editorial comment "increasing market share means we can sadly expect to see more bad guys target us from now on" has never been proven to be true. It is a faulty conclusion from the anti-Apple security FUD strategy called "Security through obscurity." Since Symantec started the ongoing anti-Apple FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) campaign in the spring of 2005 to lift the sales of its worst-in-class Mac anti-malware app, nothing has occurred that supports the STO myth. Mac marketshare in the US rose during that period from around 2% to 10+% with an accompanying total of 27 Mac malware. Meanwhile, Windows has over 1000x more malware on a per user basis, unimaginably beyond anything predictable by the STO myth. IOW: Watch "we can sadly expect to see more bad guys target us from now on" to perhaps be true, but watch the bad guy success rate to be minimal. Why? Because, as Windows users hate to hear, Mac OS X is fundamentally more secure. It's UNIX. It's not Microsoft.

Nonetheless, never neglect Mac security. No operating system or software is perfect. The long list of discovered security holes in Apple's QuickTime over the years is a great example. We will always have 'LUSER' failure as well, indicating why social engineering Trojan horses constitute nearly all Mac OS X malware.

I keep track of Mac security at:
http://Mac-Security.blogspot.com

Also consider you're ISP* they may offer free anti-virus as part of the monthly fees.
I know the big "C**" switched to Norton*** since they have a Mac version.



*Internet Service Provider.

** The other "Big 'C'"

*** It's not incredibly horrible [like the old days] at least not so far....

Sophos is a horrid security solution in an enterprise, why would I even think about installing their sub-par software on my Mac? I don't care if the product's free. Sophos' products are worthless and not worth my disk space.

LOL!!

I've never liked Sophos. Dealing with it at my work (a university) is a pain. Upon that, it's reactive, not pro-active, so it won't keep your machine from getting infected, but will keep others from catching what your machine has while the virus is being eradicated.

Free or not, Sophos is crap.

So their software is for 3 things
1) infected pirated software downloaded form P2P sites
2) trojan horses downloaded as part of a plug-in to view porn
3) Windows infections attached to tour Mac's email.

I fail to see how these apply to most prudent Mac users...

3 Macs at work over 9 years, no anti-virus. Recently got a new company MacBook (to replace the one I bought personally) and I HAD to install McAfee anti virus.

After transferring all files via Time Machine, ran a scan of over 800,000 files that had been unprotected for almost a decade.

Guess what - McAfee found zip.

Wait - let me correct that - one infected Windows file on the Windows disk partition used by Parallels to run Windows. I think I see a pattern there..

I don't buy hard hats from people who tell me the sky is falling.