Does this product contravene UK consumer protection legislation?

"But a "vulnerability" isn't a virus, which is what this thread is about, and the word "virus" is used in the name applied by Sophos to the product, which brings it right into target as far as legislation governing product descriptions is concerned - my basic point."

In all honesty, you seem to be taking the subject out of context. First of all vast majority  of anti malware / virus applications have words "anti virus" linked to them regardless how many virus or malware applications the platform has or if application targets single or multiple platforms. From consumer perspective, its irrelevant if application is virus or malware since both can have similar effects on users computer. Lets face it, Viruses on computers are a myth created by nerds who haven't apparently yet encountered a living organism. It might come as surprise to you but  "a virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms". Therefore, you might want to start suing every single anti virus application manufacturer since there is no such thing as a computer virus only malware. To answer your original question "Does this product contravene UK consumer protection legislation?". No, it doesn't. 

PS. This software is for Mac and not Linux.

There are MULTIPLE viruses that exploit OS X , there are also rootkits and vulnerabilities, not to mention scripted crap ,  written in basic ,java and JS (javascript)

Just because you are not running under the 'root' account  DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE SAFE!!!!!,  yes they might not be able to 'install' something on your computer, but they can certainly own you and your whole network if you have  not done what you should have done.

please feel free to continue to 'jack off' about the exact wording you think has to be used when your computer/ network security fails and you get owned. In the end you are still owned no matter how much you may cry about the terms being incorrectly applied.

Although I'm known for giving my two (€)cents quite often and this is a tempting thread I resisted for a long time. I have to chime in not only to find out what this topic is really about but also to comment on some - what I think are - inaccuratenesses.

I still wonder whether this subject is really about what it says i.e. discussing the legality of Sophos' advertisements or product descriptions, an eye-catcher for praising the superiority of *nix over Windows or kind of vengeance for Microsoft's "marketing practices".

Let's keep the lawyers (especially those from the U.S.) out of here. :smileywink:

Although many of the arguments are sound the line of argument is a clutter.

The security models of *nix and Windows NT are not that different and the latter is a multi user system and not to be confused with the "MS-DOS" branch.

A model is one thing, an implementation another and the there are programming environments, additional components and applications to name a few aspects which are nowadays (more or less incorrectly) subsumed under the name of an OS. From such a view you can say that Windows is a single-user consumer product.

I agree that Windows (in the above denotation) is by far less secure than Linux or Mac OS X. But not because of the security model or the kernel itself. It's the stuff that was piled upon it and the so-called functionality and user-experience that was deemed necessary and implemented undermining most of the security concepts (in it's early days TCP did the same to *nix, BTW). From a practical view it doesn't matter much whether the OS or something atop of it is infected. Just why do we have things like Little Snitch?

What are these mechanisms for self-replication which exist in a "properly configured and used" Windows system but not in other OSs? It doesn't take much to Linux security more Windows-like-"user-friendly" - it is possible. Fortunately it isn't done. 

Last but not least - a vulnerability (not an implementation bug) means that the security can be non-deliberately (by the victim, not the attacker of course) subverted. It is no surprise that those exist in complex systems - the point is they are here. Whether they are exploited is more a question of economics - why bother to take over the few Macs? :smileywink:

Christian