Sophos

Value

The home version of the software is free. No hidden charges or nasty surprises. The package still includes great features and a good-looking interface. The reason for them being able to offer such a good solution for nothing is probably down to them supplying serious size businesses with their paid solution. Developing a slightly cut down version of their paid version is pretty easy and wouldn’t cost a lot of development time.

Reliability and Security

You may think that reliability, and performance of security would suffer due the lack of cash required to get this software but you’d be wrong. It’s got very capable malware protection and have very low performance hits during full scans however the scans can be very lengthy, that’s okay if you’re patient but can become annoying if you’re not. There are plenty of amazing reviews from 3rd party companies out on the web so feel free to check them out too.

Support and Customer Service

You shouldn’t be expecting too much from support after all you aren’t supporting them by paying nothing towards their software, however they obviously understand their business model well enough to offer it for free. And to be fair to Sophos their support is still cracking, they offer live chat and telephone sales support. The like of Spybot who charge for their antivirus don’t even offer this! Sophos’ support community is also packed with information so you may not even have to hit them up.

Features

Reliable and capable malware protection, one-click scans, parental controls and remote management are the main software features they offer, so you are missing the likes of anti-spam management, a browser cleaner and corny features like password managers. Again, just a reminder that it is free so you can’t expect the world from them.