Is support for Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac going to be discontinued soon?

Support for Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition 9.4.2 has been discontinued for Snow Leopard/10.6 and Lion 10.7. If you are running an OS above either of these, the 9.4.2 should automatically update to the current 9.5.2.

Note: I've found that after updating, a restart was needed to get it working.

See community.sophos.com/.../77784

Hi BRVX,

Thanks for your reply, and it's reassuring that Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition isn't being discontinued.  I'm running on El Capitan 10.11.6 at the moment, and 'Sophos Anti-Virus' works fine.  I've re-started the Mac today, but Sophos hasn't been updated to 9.5.2, but I see from your link (thank you) that 9.5.2 is only a 'preview' and is only being offered to 'willing volunteers'.

I've also tried the new 'Sophos Home', but it just doesn't have the features of 'Sophos Anti-Virus', and I think I would change to an entirely different developer (maybe Avast), if I was forced to change to 'Sophos Home' at the moment.  Once it's got some more usual features, then maybe I might be willing to change, but 'Sophos Anti-Virus' does everything I want at the moment, and does it faultlessly.

Maybe I'l test  the new 9.5.2 preview on a spare drive, to see if I like it.  Hopefully, Sophos will get that working fully soon, and then we'll all be updated automatically.

Thanks again for your input.

No, the 9.5.2 is not the preview. As far as I know, it's the version that went automatically live to everyone running 10.8 and above, at the beginning of August. Updating (and then restarting, in my case, at least) should bring it in. The 9.5.0 was the preview/beta version which needed to be manually installed.

brvx said:

No, the 9.5.2 is not the preview. As far as I know, it's the version that went automatically live to everyone running 10.8 and above, at the beginning of August...

Bob Cook said 8/11 that "We published an update to the Preview build (9.5.2) today. If you have previously installed the Preview, your software should automatically update." I'm still running Sophos 9.4.2 on my production Mac but a test Mac was upgraded from Preview 9.5.0 to 9.5.2 as he described.

Thought is was going to all endpoints at the beginning 8/16. So if updating doesn't automatically being it in, then I suppose you need to install the 9.5 first.

brvx said:

Thought is was going to all endpoints at the beginning 8/16. So if updating doesn't automatically being it in, then I suppose you need to install the 9.5 first.

I could be wrong but given the amount of time that 9.5.0 spent in beta (June to August), I'd expect 9.5.2 to spend more than a few days in beta status.

Hi ZRL1,

Thanks for your continued postings.  I've been working on this.  I cloned my entire main computer onto a back drive, so that I'm testing near-enough live files.  The download of 9.5.0 was quick and easy.  It installed without any problems.  I had to prompt it to update to 9.5.2, but that then worked fine.  On restarting the drive, I get a message telling me that Sophos Anti-Viris isn't running, but it goes away after about a minute.  I've never had this message before when running a previous version, so I don't know why it's taking longer to open and run.

I can't really see any difference between 9.4.2 and 9.5.2, except that the wording is slightly different in the scan box.  Otherwise, I have no idea what has been improved.  I will run a full scan of my system overnight, to see if that finds anything.

It sounds as if even 9.5.2 is still a Preview (beta version), so I'll go on testing it on my spare drive.  Hopefully, it'll be made into the next official version soon.

Thanks again for your help (and that of brvx).

I ran a scan of my test backup drive (containing 264 GB of applications/data) overnight.  As expected, it found 'No files with detections'.  It had finished by the morning, so I was unaware of any issues during running.  ('No files with detections' is the replacement wording for the old 'No threats founds'.)

Running a scan on  ~/Library/Mail  takes the same amount of time (25 seconds) on 9.5.2 as on 9.4.2.  I know this isn't exactly a scientific experiment, but the scanning time on this small file (1.5 GB) hasn't improved, or got worse.

My original question was if Sophos was going to discontinue 'Sophos Anti-Virus'.  I think that's been answered adequately, in that a new version is in the process of being released.  I am greatly relieved, as I see no benefits in the 'Sophos Home' in its current state.

Hello Colin,

We will eventually migrate all users of the "classic" Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition to the new Sophos Home, but there is no specific date for this. Until this happens we will continue to fully support both versions.

Today users get to choose which version works best for them. We would like to believe that as Sophos Home gains more features and rich functionality, users will want to migrate from the "classic" version to that spiffy version.

The technical challenge with the automatic migration is that (as of today) anyone using Sophos Home needs to set up their account before installing the software. Obviously that won't work for the existing users who don't yet have an account. That team is working on various solutions to that challenge, but also doing a lot of feature development. Its always a matter of balancing the priorities.

Hope that helps.

Hi Bob,

Well, I am impressed to have received a message from the Big White Chief.  Thank you, I'm feeling very reassured now that I've heard from you, but also that 9.5.2 'classic' 'Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition' is in the process of being released.  As I've mentioned, 9.5.2 workes fine for me (although it seemed to take a lot of time to open on a complete startup).  I shall continue to test it on my backup drive.

I had previously installed the new Sophos Home on my backup drive, but was very disappointed with its features.  That version has now been zapped, as I erased the drive in order to clone from my normal startup drive - and I've now got the 9.5.2 'classic' 'Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition' on the backup drive.  However, I did create an account to test the new Sophos Home, so I expect it will still work at a later date when more features are added to make it worthwhile to change to the new Sophos Home.

As it happens, I shall be installing the "classic" Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition on a (retired GP) friend's next week, so I'm doubly relieved that I'm advising him correctly.

Finally, I wonder if a statement from Sophos to the effect of what you have written to me would be a good idea.  It can't be just me who has been confused.

Thanks again for your input.