Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Sophos Launches Free Anti-Virus Software for Mac OS X

RobertMartens said:
And why are we so worried about passing on Windows Viruses, doesn't everyone running Windows HAVE TO run AV software. They would be nuts if they didn't. Viruses and malware have been and will always be problems that windows users will face. Just like you said.
Click to expand...

I suppose it still remains a personal choice, albeit quite a gray area. IMO, knowingly passing on a virus to another computer, and damage results, could very well be interpreted as malice and then be subject to criminal charges. I am not an expert on it but even if criminal law does not apply, possible civil action certainly does apply. Suing someone over damages could become more common in the future.

I know I would sue the jackass.
:D
 
ESET products for Mac OS X

vampyren said:
sounds more like a internet security and windows virus detector then a mac AV.
Click to expand...

ESET Cybersecurity for Mac
http://www.eset.com/home/cybersecurity-for-mac
—*unless I'm missing something, no on-access scanning

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Business Edition for Mac OS X FAQ
http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN2504
mentions ESET Cybersecurity (Home Edition) for Mac OS X

I'm not looking at the ESET stuff in detail but at a glance, the product range is confusing.
 
roadbloc said:
Sounds like a virus in itself. A pointless piece of software which just hogs your RAM. Totally useless for Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

That's how I'll treat AV software until there is a reason to do otherwise. I don't send files to anyone so I don't care how many Windows virus/trojan/malware I have on my Mac.
 
grahamperrin said:
ESET Cybersecurity for Mac
http://www.eset.com/home/cybersecurity-for-mac
—*unless I'm missing something, no on-access scanning
Click to expand...

ESET Cybersecurity adds an extra layer of detection to OS X Internet security features:

Blocks any attempts to infect your Mac or steal your personal information.
Eliminates threats to your Mac from email and removable media, such as USB, FireWire, CDs, and DVDs.
Protects your Mac from malicious third party applications.
Click to expand...

It's pretty much a full-featured NOD32 for Mac.
 
IntelliUser said:
Nah, there's no firewall, no anti-spam, no credit card protection - nothing like that. It's just NOD32 for Mac. Both NOD32 and Eset Smart Security Windows licenses should work with it.
Click to expand...

Cool and thanks for the clarification. I give it a try tonight.
I do have a key for windows so if it works on my mac simultaneously it would be marvelous :)
 
roadbloc said:
Sounds like a virus in itself. A pointless piece of software which just hogs your RAM. Totally useless for Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true. Just for kicks I downloaded it and scanned ALL my HDs. Results?

- for 2,500,000 files, it took at least 8 hours while slowing my Mac to a crawl for anything else - Dual-core CPU usage of 100% on average (out of 200%);

- Of course it didn't find anything relevant for Macs; just 2 VERY old Windows worms that were apparently attached to a couple of archived Outlook messages received by my Windows PC at work - these files were just part of a dormant 2006 backup of my Windows work files stored on my Mac for more than 4 years.

Following that waste of time, I simply clicked on Remove Sophos and got rid of it. Nice effort and free, but irrelevant nonetheless. Wake me up again when there is a real virus for OS X.
 
To the posters who say antivirus sioftware is 'unintrusive' I have to disagree. If you have it set to be live/active rather than passive then it is in the very nature of antivirus software to be intrusive. That's what it does, it intrudes into the normal functioning of your OS to add extracomplexity to perform intensive checks and or scans on every IO, local or remote, activity. If it didn't intrude it wouldn't work.

You may respond by saying well it didn't intrude to the extent that I noticed, well never the less it intrudes and it slows down the performance of your system. Your system is having to do extra work, the work of the AV software, perfromance is unavoudably impacted. You can't bend the laws of physics to give AV software a free ride.

As for those who say "you should at least have it installed so you don't pass viruses to other users". Well those other (windows) users have AV software installed, right? If they don't, they should, according to you argument. And if they haven't and they get a virus it's their fault not some Mac user way down the chain.

It is inevitable that Mac OS will eventually be more frequently targetted, however I have 'faith' the it is more secure than windows. And if and when the great Mac Virus Outbreak occurs, I'll install AV software, until then. NO.
 
My1stMacWasLisa said:
It is inevitable that Mac OS will eventually be more frequently targetted, however I have 'faith' the it is more secure than windows. And if and when the great Mac Virus Outbreak occurs, I'll install AV software, until then. NO.
Click to expand...

Security is vaguely to mildly inconvenient, and worth it in my opinion. The only thing I have faith in is that no OS is truly secure if it has a network connection... that, and the willingness and ability of smart people around the world to steal in new and creative ways.

I run Norton 11.1.1 on my mac pro, I barely notice the performance hit with this version, unlike previous ones. Only catch is they don't have full 64-bit support (symantec connect site states it is 'coming soon'). But it does protect against phishing sites (not that I need that necessarily).

One of the most common ways to get malware installed these days is by Rogue AV (popups claim you are 'infected' and tell you to download a free AV app you never heard of to remove it... and bingo you've installed malware). Sophos is not one of these. Point is OS X won't protect users from themselves.
 
Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac OS X: performance, deadlocks, forced shutdowns and restarts

At http://openforum.sophos.com/t5/Soph.../Disabling-Sophos-from-start-up/m-p/1117#M643 in the words of a VIP:

Sophos Mac HE wasn't built to be used for on-demand scans only - it will use more resources than necessary for just this task…
Click to expand...

----

BRLawyer said:
slowing my Mac to a crawl
Click to expand...

Experiences do vary greatly.

At one extreme: users who find SAV better than comparable software from other developers. There are many such users.

At the other extreme: users who find that SAV causes deadlock (requiring a forced shutdown or restart) before the computer can be used. Around http://openforum.sophos.com/t5/Soph...-to-complete-login-after-reboot/m-p/1005#M588 I hope to discover whether a previously known issue was:

a) resolved appropriately (if the number of WorkerThreads was not increased from 4, then how was the issue resolved?)

or

b) overlooked.

Somewhere in the middle: Second and subsequent launches of applications, a sense of hogging — by default, on-access scanning excludes archives and compressed files (IMO that's not ideal); if you do prefer on-access scanning of archives and compressed files you may find that some types of application are unusually slow to launch.

Reading File Vault Information « The Matrix Data Bank (highlights) —

each additional thread will take up approx 8Mb of memory
Click to expand...

— alongside http://openforum.sophos.com/t5/Soph...e-to-complete-login-after-reboot/m-p/981#M576 my gut feeling at the moment is that a debatably small memory footprint (4 WorkerThreads, with no GUI to increase the number to a safer 15) presents unnecessary risk to some users.

Personally, I'm disappointed that a respected organisation with expertise in security (Sophos) has not taken care to have their product work reliably, for all users, with a key security feature (FileVault) of an operating system. It may be that only a handful of users are affected, but deadlocks and forced shutdowns are never acceptable.

aqwhiteh said:
Security is vaguely to mildly inconvenient, and worth it in my opinion.
Click to expand...

+1

For some types of user, software such as Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac OS X does offer additional (never total) peace of mind.

My advice: try it. If you find a problem, feedback to Sophos.
 
To lay down some feedback of my own, I have used Sophos for a while and I am very pleased with it. I had Clam XAV for the longest time, and to be honest I never felt very safe w/ it because it never had the image of it was even scanning legibly, sometimes it would pop up with scan errors, corrupt updates, etc. The list goes on... Sophos is a prime example of an AV that has characteristics that others are missing. It's stable, fast, reliable and ultimately gives you the best protection because it's always scanning, and always searching the file you open each time. What more can you want?
So, I tip my hat off to Sophos
 
I can't believe all of the arrogant Mac users! “The mighty OSX never gets viruses therefore I'm not going to use that garbage.“ Just keep that attitude up, it'll bite you in the ass eventually.

In the meantime, as the Mac user we have some responsibility not to spread Windows viruses to PCs when technology is there.

I use this and I like it. It doesn't slow down my Mac a bit.
 
awful program
locked up my mac multiple times and possibly was the cause of my bootcamp partition getting completely ruined
was working fine until i ran this
 
cav23j said:
awful program
locked up my mac multiple times and possibly was the cause of my bootcamp partition getting completely ruined
was working fine until i ran this
Click to expand...

TBH, probably wasn't the AV.. when you dual boot there are so many bugs that go on w/ OSX. I never dual boot anymore because it would always lock my Mac up..
I saw a lady today at the Apple Store, and goes to the Genius Bar.. and the first thing she says "Hi, I am having troubles with my iMac, I dual booted through Boot Camp w/ Windows 7, and it crashed my Mac." I LOL'd and the genius's confirmed it was the cause of dual boot. I don't trust it... not one bit.
 
dj2mc said:
TBH, probably wasn't the AV.. when you dual boot there are so many bugs that go on w/ OSX. I never dual boot anymore because it would always lock my Mac up..
I saw a lady today at the Apple Store, and goes to the Genius Bar.. and the first thing she says "Hi, I am having troubles with my iMac, I dual booted through Boot Camp w/ Windows 7, and it crashed my Mac." I LOL'd and the genius's confirmed it was the cause of dual boot. I don't trust it... not one bit.
Click to expand...

what do you mean by dual boot?
 
It's convenient. Any time I'm going to transfer media to my Windows machines from my Mac, I run it through the scan on my Mac so I don't spread a dormant virus to my PCs.
 
i never had any problems with the Boot Camp Partition until this
mac ran fine and i need to use Windows for certain programs
 
I try to avoid using any Anti-Virus software not sure how long that's going to last but the verdicts still out on Sophos because my sister uses it and her Mac froze up twice after using it & she suddenly started getting the spinning beach ball a lot.
 
OK, I've had it on my MBP for about 3 weeks and I've noticed the spinning beach ball a lot more than I remember... no crashes though.

I've just taken it off; or at least tried to. I used AppDelete and it took off everything except the icon on my top bar. When I click on the icon, it says there are updates available... dooooh...
 
Im hearing so many good things about Sophos, If this is their first offering to consumers, are they offering Sophos for home users on Windows?

Im using AVG 2011 Free Edition at the moment, and haven't had any problems with it, is it worth getting Sophos?
 
JaimeChinook said:
OK, I've had it on my MBP for about 3 weeks and I've noticed the spinning beach ball a lot more than I remember... no crashes though.

I've just taken it off; or at least tried to. I used AppDelete and it took off everything except the icon on my top bar. When I click on the icon, it says there are updates available... dooooh...
Click to expand...

Reinstall it and use the built-in uninstaller. NEVER trust anything but official uninstallers when it comes to antivirus apps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back