{"id":2986,"date":"2010-11-02T13:59:15","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T13:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/?p=2986"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:37:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:37:24","slug":"sophos-launches-free-anti-virus-software-for-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2010\/11\/sophos-launches-free-anti-virus-software-for-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophos Launches FREE Anti-Virus Software For Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well most Apple<\/a> users would tell you they don’t need anti-virus anyway, viruses and malware are a Windows<\/a> problem – not something the hi-tech hipsters need to worry about.<\/p>\n

And let’s face it, even if you run Windows you don’t really need to run anti-virus either if you practice good web-habits. But with the amount of idiots running OSX on their shiny Macbooks – malware may well become a problem for the platform.<\/p>\n

It’s not a problem right now, the stats for malicious software on Apple platforms are still minuscule compared to the threats on Windows and even on Linux.<\/p>\n

Sophos released a free of charge Mac anti-virus product for consumers on Tuesday in a bid to highlight the growing security risk against the platform and to shake fanbois out of their complacency.<\/p>\n

The business-focused internet security firm is making Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac available for download at no charge – with no time limit, and requiring no registration. The technology is a cut-down version of Sophos’s pre-existing anti-virus software for Macs and will ship with detection of thousands of malware strains including Trojans and rootkits. Sophos has no plans to release an equivalent free of charge Windows anti-malware scanner.<\/p>\n

Three well-established freebie security scanners (AVG, Avast, Avira) already exist even without considering Microsoft’s own Security Essentials software. Although commercial anti-virus packages for Macs have been sold for some time by the likes of Intego and Symantec – and more recently by Kaspersky and Panda – Sophos’s software one of very few freebie scanners for Macs available to date.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a pretty interesting move from Sophos<\/a> tho, business wise, as they have no plans into strong-arming users into paying for a commercial version by releasing a crappy crippled version under the guise of ‘free’ software.<\/p>\n

Sophos has always been a company with strong technology, so even as freeware I’d expect this to be fairly capable software. There are other commercial AV systems out their for Mac – but this is the first one from a reputable vendor that is free. I mean there’s ClamAV<\/a> – but in all honestly who would want to rely on that?<\/p>\n