I've been using Sophos AV for Mac for several months and have recommended it to many co-workers, friends and family for their Macs. Generally, I've been very happy with the product. I've had occasional kernel panics, but it's good to see that the Sophos team responds quickly when these errors occur.
One feature that I would like to see is a method for users to control the behavior of product updates. Today, users can turn the update mechanism on and off and they can configure the frequency of the checks. I would like to see the version updates separated out so that a user can specify whether or not Sophos AV automatically updates itself to a new major version (from 7.x to 8.x for example). Ideally, the user would be able to specify [Upgrade Automatically] or [Notify When Updates Are Available].
The reasoning behind my request is as follows. Companies and corporations that allow VPN access to home PCs need a way to assess the security standpoint of foreign PCs (-please note that I'm using the "PC" acronym in the general sense for all types of personal computers). This is typically done through a software agent that gets installed on the PC. These agents are only able to assess the security standpoint of AV products that have gone through a testing phase. Hence, there is some lag between the time a new AV product version is released and when it can be supported by a VPN vendor.
Here is the scenario: Let's say 1000 people across the globe are using their personal Macs to access employer VPNs. Those VPN's are powered by Cisco, Juniper and other VPN vendors and are configured to allow access if an supported AV product is running on the remote Macs. Now let's also assume that Sophos AV for Mac verions 7 and 8 are on the compatibility list of those VPNs. Everything works great until version 9 starts automatically rolling out. At that point, those users are out of compliance and can no longer connect to the VPN. They must then choose between waiting for their companies and or VPN vendors to update their systems or simply uninstalling Sophos and installing a different AV solution.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I hope this generates some good conversation. Thanks!
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