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Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac version 9.0 Preview

bobcook

Hi everyone,

Today we published Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac version 9.0 Preview for your evaluation and use.

The headline feature for version 9.0 is Web Protection, offering protection to make web browsing safe. This is the same technology used by our corporate customers, learn more from our website: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/why-sophos/innovative-technology/web-protection.aspx

We've also worked hard to improve the existing features with a number of security and stability fixes. Version 9.0 supports Mac OS X 10.6 and up. This means we've discontinued support for all PowerPC systems and 10.4/10.5 Intel systems going forward.

This is a "preview" release. The product has passed all of our internal quality assurance testing but we are looking for additional feedback from real users in the real world. Barring any undiscovered defects, this version provides the same protection as version 8 plus protection for web browsing. The product will get regular updates too.

Download the version 9.0 Preview installer here: http://downloads.sophos.com/home-edition/savosx_90_he.zip

SHA-256 checksum of the 9.0.0 zip file: 0252e80845d38e43c9638983900d3f9a91dac4b2e9c028e787e4a8e40018d4c1

SHA-256 checksum of the 9.0.1 zip file: 4719154788e5e4251dc76bfecde842ea7fd08db32e36ecef0072335ca156bb4a

You can upgrade an existing version 8 installation, or set up a brand new installation with the same installer. Either way, just download and run the installer app. Today you need to "opt-in" by manually running the installer but later this year we'll migrate all version 8 installations.

If you find problems, please post about it here. If you don't have any problems we'd also love to hear that too. If you find a showstopper issue, please let us know and then reinstall version 8 until we can fix it.

Note that the version 8 installer is still available from our main website: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx

Regarding the Web Protection feature, you can test the two different types of protection with these two links:

URL reputation blocking: http://www.sophostest.com/ then click the "Malware" link about half-way down the page

Malicious content blocking: http://www.eicar.org/download/eicar_com.zip

In both cases, you will get a notification page instead of the real content when the protection features are enabled in the preferences.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

:1012410


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  • 0
    gilby101 wrote:

    By the way, I have been using Sophos for Mac for a few years and everytime I consider moving to something else I always come back to knowing that Sophos for Mac meets my needs better than the competition (paid or free).  Thank you!

    Glad to hear that. Keep sending questions and feedback!

    I was going to suggest in my previous post that you can use Wireshark or tcpdump to see what we are sending to/from our cloud service. Its over plain HTTP and the destination domain is sophosxl.net. The IP address will vary by your geographical location.

    :1012500
  • 0
    Hi Bob, the for fast answer. I will install sophos next week. You know pn.

    Greets carlos
    :1012502
  • 0

    Will this be compatable with Mavericks?

    :1012508
  • 0

    Hi velourfog,

    Our policy is to be ready on the day Apple releases their new OS. There is some work needed to version 9.0 to be fully compatible, those changes are already in the works.

    :1012512
  • 0
    Hi Bob, i cant wait :-)

    The Problem from Version 8 was that the First Start of any Apps Takes 4-5 seconds. After it is RAM the App. Starts fast, but so grob the RAM use to 4 Ort 5 in use from 8 Gigabyte. So i have only 4gb for work.

    Greets
    :1012514
  • 0

    I have just noticed that my boot drive has a /Build directory (owned by root) whose contents (and date) suggest it was created by the V8 to V9 upgrade.  It has sub-directories with names that include SophosV8Migration.   This should have been deleted (I would think) at the end of the upgrade.

    If this is not a known (or repeatable) problem, is there any log file I can send you which might help?

    :1012520
  • 0

    Hi gilby101,

    Yes this is a known problem from 9.0.0 and will not happen on migration starting with 9.0.1. Unfortunately 9.0.1 won't remove those files if you started with 9.0.0.

    Its safe for you to remove those files yourself. You'll need admin priviliges. They aren't used by the product after installation, but be sure to do it after you have 9.0.1 otherwise they will be re-created again by the 9.0.0 software.

    :1012524
  • 0
    bobcook wrote:
    ...The headline feature for version 9.0 is Web Protection, offering protection to make web browsing safe. This is the same technology used by our corporate customers, learn more from our website: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/why-sophos/innovative-technology/web-protection.aspx...

    Thanks in advance for your feedback.

    After upgrading to the 9.0.1 Preview from version 8, I immediately noticed a slowdown in web page loading compared to v. 8, and an uptick in SophosWebIntelligence CPU usage in Activity Monitor as I click on a new link. Assuming the two are related, I tried turning Web Protection off in Sophos preferences. The page loading delay continued as did the SophosWebIntelligence activity. Are the two connected and should turning Web Protection off speed things up?

    I should add that the slowdown is more obvious with complex web pages, such as news sites, which I believe have more links to secondary URL's since I assume they get checked as the page loads.

    :1012554
  • 0
    ZRL1 wrote:

    After upgrading to the 9.0.1 Preview from version 8, I immediately noticed a slowdown in web page loading compared to v. 8, and an uptick in SophosWebIntelligence CPU usage in Activity Monitor as I click on a new link. Assuming the two are related, I tried turning Web Protection off in Sophos preferences. The page loading delay continued as did the SophosWebIntelligence activity. Are the two connected and should turning Web Protection off speed things up?

    I should add that the slowdown is more obvious with complex web pages, such as news sites, which I believe have more links to secondary URL's since I assume they get checked as the page loads.

    The SophosWebIntelligence process is doing the filtering for web connections. To not filter any web traffic, turn off both options in the Web Protection preferences. Send me a list of your top two or three problematic sites & some data about slowdown (either as a percentage or number of seconds). Also would like to know the specs of your machine so we can try to replicate your findings in our lab.

    :1012566
  • 0
    bobcook wrote:
    The SophosWebIntelligence process is doing the filtering for web connections. To not filter any web traffic, turn off both options in the Web Protection preferences. Send me a list of your top two or three problematic sites & some data about slowdown (either as a percentage or number of seconds). Also would like to know the specs of your machine so we can try to replicate your findings in our lab.

    SophosWebIntelligence routinely pokes along at 0.1% CPU and might jump to 5.5 to 11.2% CPU when I access, for example, the Washington Post. The %CPU will oscillate as the different components of the page are loaded. Once the loading is done, SophosWebIntelligence will settle back down to 0.1% CPU.

    Just trying it again with the two options turned off, I'm not seeing that delaying behavior today (it stays at about 0.1% CPU) though I did see it the last time I tried the comparison. Could it be that I made the preference change but didn't quit Sophos Saturday but did quit today; i.e., does a preference change only take effect after the preferences window is closed and/or Sophos is quit?

    In any case, I'm using a 2010 6 core Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM and OS 10.7.5 on an SSD boot drive.

    Trying the test accessing the WP with Web Protection on and off, with it off it takes about 4 seconds, with it on, a little over 10. There are many components to the page, which makes the piecemeal loading delay more obvious.

    :1012570