Sophos Anti-Virus is clearly aimed at the enterprise market, with the minimum purchase being a 10-user licence, renewable annually. Unlike some of the other packages, Sophos is available for most operating systems including Unix, Open VMS, NetWare and Macintosh.

As well as being one of the few packages that runs on the Linux platform, Sophos is designed for the networked environment with features such as SMTP virus alert emails, administrative functions and management tools. Sophos is distributed monthly on CD, or is available to registered subscribers for download from the Internet. Rather than updating the product, a new version is released every month with virus update files (patches) made available as new viruses are discovered.

Installation of the product is clearly designed for the network administrator who knows what they are doing. While installation itself is not difficult, the default install does not automatically check floppy drives or scan for Word macro viruses, although files on floppy disks and Word and Excel documents are checked upon access.

The Sophos interface is utilitarian, as one would expect in the enterprise environment, and lacks the wizards and other features found in SME and SOHO packages. Despite the lack of a fancy interface, Sophos is as good as any other anti-virus package, and is able to detect and quarantine infected files from the Web and email.

Sophos ships with several comprehensive manuals designed for system administrators. No cartoons or pretty pictures here - just lots of useful reference information.

As it's designed for the enterprise, Sophos includes additional features not found in the other packages including event logging, network messaging and network virus sweeping.

If you need anti-virus for a non-Windows OS, or a large networked environment where management is a priority, then Sophos is a good option. But it's overkill and over-priced for the home user.