Sophos Launches Free Anti-Virus Software for Mac OS X

Sophos today announced the release of free Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition software, a version of their paid software typically targeting business users.

That means your home Macs can be protected automatically in-the-background with the latest anti-virus protection, checking every program you run, every file you download, every USB stick you insert, completely free. Is there a catch you're wondering? Well, nope! There isn't!

While threats to Mac users have typically come in the form of trojan horses that rely on tricking users into granting administrator access to their machines to install their payloads, anti-virus software can help identify this malware and alert users when they attempt to install it. In addition, anti-virus software is sometimes recommended for Mac users who frequently exchange files with Windows users, as it can prevent Windows malware that wouldn't affect Mac OS X machines from being unwittingly passed on to Windows systems.

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition runs on Macs with Intel or PPC processors and requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.4 and 256 MB of RAM.

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