Sophos Firewall Updates will no longer be free in the future
The time when you could receive Sophos Firewall firmware updates free of charge will soon be over. Only customers with a valid support license will receive SFOS updates. Sophos itself states that 80% of customers are not affected because they already have such a license. For the remaining 20%, firmware updates will only be available with a valid license.
Which customers are affected by the changes?
| Scenarios | Changes |
|---|---|
| You have a valid license bundle: - Standard Protection - Xstream Protection - Epic Protection Applies to Enhanced and Enhanced Plus | None, you will continue to receive firmware updates as long as you have a valid license. |
| You have a valid single support license: - Enhanced Support - Enhanced Plus Support | None, you will continue to receive firmware updates as long as you have a valid license. |
| You do not have a support license, but only a Base License or a single license. | You will still receive update v19 MR1 and the next three upgrades. After that, there will be no more updates unless you purchase a support license. |
| Use of a test license | The test license is valid for 30 days, and during this time you can of course also install updates. |
| Use of a home license | There is no change for you; you will continue to receive free updates. |
What about pattern updates and hotfixes?
These updates will remain free until the product is End of Life.
Why does Sophos want money for updates in the future?
Sophos itself writes the following:
While this requirement is new for us (with the exception of Sophos Switch), it has been standard practice for many competitive network security products for quite some time.
Sophos E-Mail to Sophos Partner
Translated, this means something like: Dear customers, until now we have given you something for free that we could actually charge money for. Does that bother you? Competitors have been doing this for years, so we are not doing anything wrong.
That is, of course, a very exaggerated way of putting it and probably how affected customers may now see it. In recent years, Sophos has repeatedly tried to justify itself by pointing to competitors. But you do not always have to do what everyone else does.
The fact remains, however, that developing software costs money. At the very least, Sophos developers want to be paid; otherwise they would have joined an open-source project, although money often flows there too. Very few people want software without updates, and especially in the security sector it is not something we would recommend.
In fact, most of our customers have a bundle license and are not affected by this change. For everyone else, I have to say that, unlike UTM, SFOS includes many features in the Base License that required a license on UTM, such as IPsec VPN or SSL VPN (Network Protection).
How do you continue to get free updates?
If the cost of upgrading to a license bundle or support license is too high for you, there is another route, although it is a bit more involved. But hey, it works.
- Create a backup of your Sophos Firewall configuration
- Create a USB stick to reinstall the firewall
- Restore backup, as explained in the instructions under point 1
- Done.
Downloading an ISO file with the latest SFOS version is still free. But whether the effort here is really worth it, I leave up to you, and with an HA cluster, the effort is even higher.
More information: FAQs: Sophos Firewall v19 MR1 Adds Support Requirement for Future Firmware Upgrades
