Sophos Home is security software for Windows and macOS that combines protection on each computer with a web dashboard for managing the household’s devices. It scans for malware, monitors running programs, blocks dangerous websites and lets you set content restrictions remotely. The same account can include both PCs and Macs, with settings and activity shown separately for each computer.
Managing computers from the Sophos Home dashboard
Selecting a computer in the Sophos Home dashboard opens its protection status, recent activity and configuration controls. You can see which protections are enabled, change that computer’s settings and choose its web-filtering rules without sitting at the machine.
Premium licenses and mobile devices
Sophos Home Premium covers up to ten computers. The trial includes Premium features for thirty days on up to three computers. Each account has its own device limit; purchasing more licenses for the same account does not increase that limit. Sophos Home is intended for personal, non-commercial use.
The desktop dashboard does not include phones and tablets. Mobile protection is provided by the separate Sophos Intercept X for Mobile product, rather than by installing the Windows or Mac application on those devices.
Activity history
Each computer’s History tab retains ninety days of security activity. Filters separate malware detections, website events and scans, so you can inspect a blocked page without searching through every scan entry. The dashboard also shows recent events alongside the computer’s current status.
The Quarantine view identifies detections that need a decision. For a potentially unwanted application, the available response can include allowing, blocking or ignoring the item. History entries expire automatically after the retention period.
Threat detection
Sophos Home uses known malware signatures alongside checks for suspicious program behavior. These address different evidence: a signature identifies a recognized threat, while behavior monitoring examines what an application attempts to do. The Windows edition adds predictive AI detection for unfamiliar malware and integrates with Windows’ Antimalware Scan Interface to inspect scripting attacks, including scripts concealed through obfuscation or encryption.
Real-time protection runs as you use the computer, covering threats such as viruses, trojans, bots and potentially unwanted applications. Sophos Home can stop programs that behave maliciously and provide a route to remove them. Its ransomware protection targets attempts to encrypt personal files and can roll back affected files when it intervenes.
Windows and macOS share the core antivirus, ransomware, website protection and remote-management functions. Their feature sets differ: the dedicated predictive AI and advanced malware-cleanup features belong to Windows.
Manual and scheduled scans
Sophos Home offers full scans on Windows and Mac, a fast scan on Mac and scans of selected files or folders through their context menu.
You can also choose a scan schedule in the selected computer’s dashboard settings. Completion appears in the dashboard, but the computer must be awake and connected to the Internet for the scheduled scan to run. A laptop must also be plugged into its charger. If those conditions are not met, Sophos Home attempts the scan at the next scheduled day and time.
Website protection and parental filtering
Website protection checks destinations against a database of dangerous or compromised sites, including phishing pages. It also examines website content and downloads for threats. These checks address malicious activity, while parental web filtering lets you decide which types of otherwise accessible content a computer may open.
For parental filtering, you select categories such as entertainment or news and set them to Allow or Block. The rules apply to the whole computer, rather than to individual user accounts, and each managed computer has its own configuration. Blocked attempts appear in the dashboard; visits to allowed categories are not logged there.
Sophos Home’s filtering controls block categories rather than providing individual URL block rules. A website can also use content from several categories, so part of a site may be blocked even when its main page opens. The web-filtering feature does not support IPv6 connections.
