Why is it free?

Don't really know why too...  :smileysurprised:

maybe free for the first year only ?

and also:

will this free av will be able to protect against the latest mac threats ?

is this product also protects against phishing or web attacks??

Hi

I'd like to install home edition, confident about mac but curious about av and sophos.

But I'd like to know before why this soft for free, and for how long ?

Hi CJ

The reason for providing this for free is because we think Macs are beautiful machines and we want to keep them that way.  As Apple market share grows there is a growing concern that the number of malicious attacks against the Mac platform will increase.  Historically, Mac users are less likely to run anti-virus / anti-malware software making Mac users a soft target.  We want to help Mac users increase their security hence offering this software for free.

We know that Mac malware already exisits and these can attack Mac systems to steal data or compromise systems.  As the majority of malware still targets Windows, there is not the same range of high performance consumer anti-virus software available in the market.  Sophos provides high quality protection for businesses, and all business users are also consumers.  Therefore helping them to protect their Macs at home will also help protect their business machines.  We think offering free, industrial-strength protection to consumers will help them be ready for any future mac-specific cyber-attack.

This software is backed by the same high quality threat detection as our business-class software - so will detect, clean-up and quarantine to the same standards, it is not watered it down.  However this is restricted just for home use.

We have not set a time-limit on this software and our intention is to continue providing best protection updates to users on this software version.

Hope you take us up on the offer and install the software on your Mac.

Sunil

Hi cj, mach1 and mccol (sunil I already know)

Welcome to our new community, and thanks for our first ever posts! I hope you find the information posted here useful, and that you'll continue to visit. You can comment and make suggestions about SophosFreeTalk itself by posting in the About SophosFreeTalk forum.

Best regards,

spike

Thanks, downloaded, and currently running my first scan of over half a million items on my MacBook Pro.  I guess it was just a matter of time until hackers, and alike would start targeting Apple products as the MacBooks, and alike become more, and more popular.

Hi mach1

You can read all about the sorts of threats that we protect in this naked security blog post.  The software will protect against the latest threats and by identifying malware delivered by email, over the web or via USB sticks it will help keep you safe from malware that will attempt to steal passwords and other data from you.

Regards

Sunil

Sunil, thanks for your reply.

Yes, Mac's are great machines, but that doesn't mean a big company with no business interest starts creating a free 'industrial strength' product for users just because of their 'love for macs'. There's no profit behind it, hence no business sense ; )

So what you are saying, cutting out the above, is that your business model is to:

- Provide a free product to the home user... such that...

- Business users buy your product

Kind of a tool to grow market share?  Is that correct? 

Sunil - re your reply to Mach1.

Can you confirm that if I run this software on my Mac, that if I stick in a USB stick that has a virus on it (Mac specific or PC), that it will scan the USB stick and let me know there is a problem?

Thanks 

Hello cj,

Kind of a tool to grow market share

might be correct. Wonder what will happen if a significant percentage of Mac users jump at the offer. Even 1% will be quite a load on the existing updating infrastructure I think. Market share couldn't grow fast enough then. Sophos should better have an emergency plan at hand :smileywink:

Christian

Sunil, by saying that you have not set a time limit on the Mac Free Home Edition, what does that mean exactly? Will it be free for one year, more or permanent? I have written about Sophos free in the Tiger discussion group on the Apple website, want to be able to tell the group about the length of free availability!!  I had previously been using ClamXav, the only other completely free AV for Mac 10.4 PPC + above. I note that Avast is thinking about offering its trial version Mac AV as free software in January 2011. I just began using Sophos yesterday, so far working perfectly, will report after more use. Thanks.