Sophos Home Premium offers Mac antivirus protection at a very reasonable price, but the absence of many advanced features like keylogger and exploit protection found in the Windows edition is disappointing.

With Sophos Home Premium (for Mac) you perform all configuration and device management from this online dashboard. The overall Status page looks just the same whether the device is a PC or a Mac, but as you dig deeper you find that many advanced PC features don't show up on the Mac.

The product's presence on the Mac itself is about as minimalist as you can get. Clicking the icon in the menu bar displays a tiny status widget, along with any unread notifications. From the widget's menu, the only local actions you can perform are checking for updates and launching a scan.

As in the Windows edition, the General sub-page controls detection of PUAs, malicious traffic detection, and overall real-time protection. Note that the Exploits sub-page, just to the right of General for a PC, is absent.

On both Windows and macOS, Sophos offers behavior-based protection against encrypting ransomware. Master Boot Record protection, which blocks ransomware that tries to encrypt the entire drive, is only for Windows.

Protection against spyware is one spot where Sophos offers more on the Mac. When an unknown program tries to access the cam or mic, Sophos pops up a warning that lets you allow or block access.

Sophos doesn't fool with trusted apps like FaceTime or PhotoBooth. Here it has detected an unknown program called Camera Recorder. If you see popups like this for a program you launched yourself, just allow it. If the notification is unexpected, block access.

Sophos will keep using those slide-in warnings until you open the main window and click Always Allow. That puts the program on an internal whitelist, preventing further warnings.

When there's at least one program on the whitelist, the widget's menu expands to include the item Webcam/Microphone Exceptions. Clicking one of its submenu items removes the corresponding program from the whitelist.

Like the free edition, Sophos Home Premium includes a simple parental control content filter. However, since it can't filter HTTPS traffic it can be defeated using an easily available secure anonymizing proxy.

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is free and fully featured anti-virus software that will protect your Mac from all sorts of internet threats that can damage your security, files, and privacy. Security experts know that the largest damage to local files, private information theft and OS instabilities can happen when users who don’t have much technical knowledge are interacting with internet or external storage devices, so because of that much of the Anti-Virus features are automatic and can detect software threats even without supervision by advanced users. This makes Sophos Anti-Virus perfect for every Mac user, who can have a piece of mind knowing that that very competent antivirus program is monitoring their home PC or laptop constantly. To make this monitoring as less intruding as possible, Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac demands very little CPU processing, which is especially useful for laptop owners.
Built with simple to use interface and powerful options, the tool offers full protection for novice users, professionals and businesses. The main dashboard of this app is very simple, offering an easy way to start manual scans, see quarantined files, and setup your preferences with ease (including the configuration of real-time scanning, auto updates and more). From viruses, Trojans, worms to all sorts of identity thefts, your system will remain safe and in constant communication with the SophosLabs experts who offer constant upgrades and new virus definitions that can detect and quarantine even future threats. And all of that is offered to you for free.
Features and Highlights
Full protection from viruses, Trojans and worms
Stops all threats, even those designed for Windows. Not only is your computer safe, files you send to other computers are safe from threats too.
Stops all threats, familiar and unfamiliar
Antivirus technology stops all threats, even if it's something new.
Quarantines and removes the threats it finds
You might not want to immediately delete any bad files scans find. No problem. You have the flexibility to quarantine questionable files and check them again later, or you can have them immediately removed from your computer. The choice is yours.
Business-quality antivirus, backed by SophosLabs
We've put the entire force of business-strength threat expertise behind Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac. That means you're using the same product that protects organizations like Conair, the Paideia School and Miami Dade Public Schools.
Easy installation and painless maintenance
We keep antivirus light and easy. Once installed, it'll work quietly in the background, alerting you when it finds something nasty.
It's totally free
100%, totally, absolutely, completely free. Yes, really!