Sophos Antivirus Review (2026): Is it the right choice?

Full Review

Sophos Home Premium is a user-friendly antivirus that can protect up to 10 Macs or PCs, plus unlimited mobile devices. Its minimalist design and ease of use make it ideal for non-technical users, while more advanced settings and remote management options cater to tech-savvy individuals. Most features are controlled via an intuitive online dashboard, with a basic desktop app serving as a shortcut to key functions. Overall, its simplicity and flexibility make it a solid choice for both beginners and advanced users.

Anti-Malware

Sophos offers an effective and versatile malware scanner that can be operated from both its desktop application and online dashboard. It allows users to perform scans remotely and even schedule them, which sets it apart from many competitors. The system successfully identified 96% of malware samples, including ransomware, spyware, trojans, and rootkits—slightly below the 100% detection rates achieved by top-tier rivals such as Norton and Bitdefender.

Its real-time protection feature employs AI-driven analysis, immediately intercepting every malware sample executed during testing, including advanced ransomware variants that typically bypass conventional antivirus defenses. However, its full system scans are relatively slow, taking about 90 minutes to complete, which is more than twice the time required by Norton.

While the scanner is comprehensive, it lacks a quick scan option, which is a notable omission given that most competitors offer it for checking high-risk areas. Still, it compensates with USB protection and right-click scanning for individual files and folders. Overall, Sophos delivers robust malware detection and reliable real-time protection, making it suitable for users seeking strong, AI-based defense against emerging threats.

Anti-Phishing

Sophos’s web protection system is designed to defend against malicious and phishing websites, preventing the theft of sensitive data such as banking credentials and login details. In testing, it blocked around half of the dangerous sites visited—an improvement over default browser protections but below expectations for a premium security suite.

The process of whitelisting safe websites is somewhat cumbersome, requiring users to manually enter domain names in the dashboard’s exception list. Unlike competitors such as Bitdefender, Sophos lacks a convenient “Proceed anyway” option for immediate access to blocked sites. Nevertheless, the system produced no false positives during testing, ensuring users are not hindered by unnecessary alerts.

Sophos also includes an Online Banking Protection mode that prevents cybercriminals from intercepting or tracking financial transactions. The Download Reputation feature further enhances safety by providing reliability scores for downloads based on user feedback. Importantly, these protections work without the need for additional browser extensions, though compatibility is limited to Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

Other Security Features

Sophos includes several additional tools that improve its overall functionality and convenience. Its remote management system allows users to oversee up to ten devices through the online dashboard, providing centralized control of scans, updates, and settings. This feature is rare among antivirus solutions and performed smoothly during testing. Through the dashboard, users can enable AI detection, toggle real-time protection, activate gaming mode, and review logs of detected threats. Although mobile device control is absent, the platform is intuitive and easy to navigate for both novice and advanced users.

The parental control system, while basic, offers category-based content filtering to restrict access to inappropriate websites. During testing, it effectively blocked nearly all targeted sites across multiple browsers, with the exception of Norton Private Browser. However, it lacks options for blacklisting specific URLs, tracking usage, or setting time limits, making it suitable primarily for families seeking minimal filtering capabilities.

Additional protections include webcam access alerts and keylogger defense. The keylogging protection encrypts keystrokes to prevent credential theft, performing exceptionally well in tests. The webcam alert feature, however, is minimal—displaying only a brief on-screen notification when access occurs—and does not extend to microphones. Sophos does not offer extra utilities like a VPN, dark web monitoring, or system optimization tools found in more comprehensive competitors.

Nonetheless, its focused toolset provides practical, lightweight security for users who prioritize simplicity and essential protection.

Test score comparison

We conduct in-house anti-malware tests and review the results from AV-Test, a German lab renowned for its objective evaluations. Below is the average of the last 10 AV-Test results for Windows. Their scoring criteria are:

• Protection (1-6): Effectiveness in blocking malware.
• Performance (1-6): Impact on system speed.
• Usability (1-6): Frequency of errors like false alarms.

We calculate a final score using this formula:

Final Score = 60% Protection + 20% Performance + 20% Usability.

While these results influence our choice of the best antivirus for Windows 11, other factors like privacy and identity protection also play a key role. For a similar analysis for Android or macOS, visit our other comparisons:

• The best antivirus for Android.
• The best antivirus for Mac.

Note: Brands not listed in the table either do not participate in AV-Test trials or are tested too infrequently, such as Surfshark Antivirus.

Source: AV-Test (Last updated: November 2025).

Price comparison

We’ve compared the prices of the top antivirus products for Windows. To make it a fair comparison, we looked at what it would cost us, to protect a  single Windows PC with the most essential features:

• Anti-malware
• Anti-phishing (web protection)
• Firewall
• Password manager
• Unlimited VPN (no data limit)

A few notes:

• Some brands are missing features, lowering their value for money.
• Prices are second-year prices in the USA, without first-year discounts.
• Prices are rounded up for readability (e.g., $99.99 becomes $100).

Brands have different prices outside the USA. See those on their website.

User reviews

We’ve compared the user reviews of all antivirus brands. We’ve used the scores and review count of TrustPilot, a leading user review platform. 

We consider scores above 4.0 very good. Lower scores indicate that the brand might have a poor product or customer service. McAfee’s scores, for instance, are worrying.

Source: TrustPilot. Last Update: November 2025.