Free Anti-Virus for Mac

Nov 2, 2010 - 12 Comments

free mac antivirus

Mac users generally don’t have to worry much about viruses, but with the popularity of Macs growing the likelihood of viruses appearing increases. Just recently a new trojan called Boonana Koobface appeared that affects Mac users. If you’re concerned with getting a virus on your Mac, why not download a free anti-virus app for Mac OS X?

Sophos Anti-Virus is free for home users and promises to keep you safe from viruses, trojans, and worms once it’s running. Sophos also wants to insure you that their app isn’t going to annoy you with constant alerts like some of the Windows anti-virus apps out there:

Nobody likes system pop-ups or system slow-downs. That’s why our product won’t annoy you with messages or take up your computer’s resources. And once you install Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition, you’re the boss. Want it to just scan quietly in the background as you work? No problem. Need to create a custom scan to check what you want and leave out what you don’t? It can do that, too.

I had never heard of the app before but 9to5Mac mentioned it this morning. It looks like they’re giving the Mac edition away for free in hopes to get their name established, since their paid products are all enterprise level protection. Whatever the reason, free software is always good!

You can grab the free download of Sophos Anti-Virus here.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Mac OS

12 Comments

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  1. Kirill says:

    Run an anti virus prog on my Mac and gues what? 5 Trojans. I had a tiger os . That was 2 month ago. Last week my Mac took a dive. U deside.

  2. fa says:

    Thinking that you are safe from all virus threats is exactly what will get you infected, a false sense of security. And that is on any OS you may use. It’s an open market already, Anti virus software will flood the mac’s eventually, along with all the threats…

    @The Skeptic: How do you know if someone else installed something like “http://preyproject.com/” , skipping password protection using any methods mentioned anywhere online: http://lifehacker.com/5681710/how-to-break-into-a-mac-and-prevent-it-from-happening-to-you

    I’ve done that to several macs, 3 months and still stealing info that way…. not really just to get you thinking.

  3. someGuy says:

    i’ve been getting some strange pages opening up in fire fox on my home machine

    windows like interfaces telling me i have a virus. when i open a web page they redirect to these weird pages

    been planning on reformatting anyway once i get a drive to back up to but maybe i’ll try this in the mean time

  4. Matt says:

    It runs fine until you decide to reboot your machine and it’s not connected to the network. You then get a machine that will boot but hang just after finder launches. I found this out the hard way.

    I’ve contacted Sophos to see what they have to say but in the mean time I’ve removed the app…

    • Tom says:

      Yeah, I got the same thing. I’m frequently not connected. My Macbook rebooted OK but then hung up when I tried to login to my admin account. I had to boot in safe mode to uninstall. (Mis) spent over an hour poring over logs, in a futile effort to figure out why. What a drag!

      Sophos may have the best antimalware software since the creation of the world, but I can’t use it…it doesn’t work and play well with my computer.

  5. Joseph says:

    Crashes my computer every time it scans, and that makes it useless for me.

  6. Bo says:

    Did I realy need this or any antivirus .. I`m running my Snow Leopard since 1 year .. Yesterday I download this free Sophos antivirus and it did not catch any virus ot thread .. What do you think for any antivirus for Mac guys ?

    • Paster says:

      Still useless for Mac indeed, the only risk would be if you install cracked software with an embedded trojan. Other than that you have to be rather stupid to get infected.

  7. The Skeptic says:

    Did you deliberately forget to mention that the “new” trojan requires you to enter an Administrator username and password to install it? Even if you are already running as an Administrator?

    This is not a significant threat. Show me a true virus (something that installs itself without my permission and explicit authorisation), and I will think about installing something like this…

  8. Jeff says:

    I appreciate free software but honestly don’t see much of a threat to my Mac

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