From its menu, you can manage your devices, view all activity, or configure preferences selecting any of these three sends you to the online dashboard. The pop-up reports security status, lists recent activity, and serves as a progress display when you're running a scan. It has no main window, just a tiny pop-up invoked by clicking its icon. The Mac takes miniaturization to another level entirely. With Sophos Home Free on Windows, you see the local antivirus agent, but all logging and configuration happen online. The product was ready to use, including all the latest antivirus signature updates, within a minute or two. Sophos installed in a flash on the MacBook Air I use for testing. It’s quite a different setup from most antivirus utilities. You can even launch a scan of the remote computer if necessary. They simply don’t have access to the controls. They can’t turn off the antivirus just because they suspect it added latency to an important game, or made a video laggy. Since all configuration happens in this online dashboard, your friends and family members can’t mess up their antivirus installation. The Web tab (also reached by clicking Web Protection on the Status tab) similarly contains settings that you shouldn’t turn off. The one exception is the scheduler-if you like, you can set Sophos to run a full antivirus scan on any days of the week.

Most users shouldn’t touch the controls on this page, as doing so would turn off various protective features. You can also reach the General tab by clicking Antivirus Protection on the Status tab. That feature proved effective on Windows, but it doesn't appear in the macOS edition. If the reputation is bad, Sophos offers to kill the download. It looks up each download in an online reputation database that considers the source website, content, and feedback from other protected computers. On Windows devices, this feature works to double-check files that the regular real-time protection system doesn't catch. The most interesting item missing on the Mac is the feature called Download Reputation. A few other scattered features such as AMSI Protection are specific to the Windows edition. Windows users see another page called Exploits, but all features on that page are Premium-only. Ransomware Protection is reserved for paying customers. This tab has three sub-tabs: General, Ransomware, and Web. That leaves the Protection tab, the place where everything happens. Finally, Web Filtering lets you configure the parental control system, which I’ll discuss later. Note that even paying users don’t get Mic Protection on the PC. Privacy is irrelevant, because Webcam and Mic Protection, the only features on that page, are not for free users. History displays a list of everything Sophos has done to protect you, with an option to filter on different event types. Free users can work with Antivirus Protection and Web Protection-the other three are Premium-only. The Status page features five large panels representing protective components. When you select a device, you get a page with five tabs: Status, History, Protection, Web Filtering, and Privacy. You can share a link via email or install Sophos on the current device. The Dashboard displays your protected devices and offers two ways to extend your protection. In a consumer setting, this lets you install protection for any friend or family member and take care of problems that arise without paying them a visit or tediously trying to talk them through a solution over the phone. That makes perfect sense, given that in a business setting the IT department manages security remotely. With Sophos, you install a small local agent on each PC or Mac that needs protection and manage all the settings from an online console.

The Premium edition lets you manage 10 devices for $60 per year (quite a deal), and it adds an impressive collection of useful security-related features. If you need more than three and don't want to set up another free account on a separate email, you must upgrade to Sophos Home Premium for Mac. From the online console you can install and manage protection on three devices, whether they run macOS or Windows. To get started with Sophos, you register an account online. It's no surprise that the consumer edition works the same way. Sophos is a big name in the enterprise-level antivirus world, where a central IT administrator controls all the local endpoint installations.

Antivirus free for mac hi sierra