With all the problems going on recently with Sophos for Mac intermittenly halting in its tracks for users running Mountain Lion and not auto-updating correctly, which affected me as well, I visited the Sophos site in order to download the 'latest' version of the installer so as to reinstall the product on my Mac computers. According to posts In the forum, this latest release is supposed to be named "8.0.8." When one vists the Sophos download page they are offered two choices:
Download for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
Download for OS X 10.4 - 10.7
The first link results in savosx_80_he.dmg being downloaded; the second results in savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg being downloaded.
Though the files names that come down should be clearer (why is "8.0.8" not part of the name of a DMG file that installs version 8.0.8 of the product?), savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg refererences closely enough Apple's 10.8 operating system that one can assume that the correct DMG file was downloaded and should be installed. However, when one opens savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg they are confronted with a finder window (containing two items, "Before You Install.html" and "Sophos Ant-Virus Home Edition.pkg") that is titled "Sophos Anti-Virus Home edition OS X 10.5+." That window title is totally misleading, especially for users who are are mindful that they are installing a version of the software that is supposed to be different than that which was designed for "OS X 10.4-10.7." What's worse, in my opinion, is that the "Before You Install" file that's proviuded in your DMG file has no reference whatsoever to the operating system version or application version, so the end user has no way of determing whether she or he is about to install the wrong file. Seeing "10.5" in the title caused me to re-download the file once more. It's not a big deal, but it's an uncessary inconvenience that should have been eliminated by employing better quality assurance procedures or better product design.
If one downloads and opens the savosx_80_he.dmg file, they are presented with what looks like the identical files. That is, the "Before You Install" readme file says nothing about which version of the operating system or application version is targeted by the DMG. Fortunately, however, the title of the savosx_80_he.dmg is "Sophos Anti-Virus Home edition OS X 10.4+," which corresponds to the download page's text "Download for OS X 10.4 - 10.7."
I would have chalked this up to a simple matter of an inadvertent and short-lived error, but then learned, while perusing your message board, that as long ago as July 30th, Sophos was notified of the confusion (see the 30 Jul 2012 1:25p posting by jbstanford in the Sophos Antivirus for Mac and OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" thread within the "Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition" discussion forum). Sophos has certainly posted updates to their web site since then. Thus, I'm beginning to agree with others, most recently Travis Ormandy who recently wrote of Sophos's inability to handle timely updates to the engine itself, even when friendly forces are trying to help the company out (http://tinyurl.com/c8vb9cq). I know that QA resources are not unlimited -- for I have had the pleasure and heartache of managing such tasks for software releases myself -- but you should be making it easier for your customers to rely on your judgement, not harder. And if your business model is to not provide direct customer care to users of your free application, then it's all the more important to make sure that even the most mundane of tasks -- installing the correct edition of your software -- are as self-documenting and as clear as possible. I hope you fix the title of the DMG window sooner than later and also reconsider the physical names of the installer files that you provide.
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