When you play a game or use a browser, practise yous e'er think about where that software came from? Yeah, a defended squad of coders and designers worked difficult to create that entertaining or useful program. Unfortunately, there are teams just as dedicated to creating software for nefarious purposes, from stealing login credentials to holding your data and devices for ransom. And their malicious creations are only every bit likely to target your Android devices as your desktop computers. You demand security software—call back antivirus—for your Android, both to fend off malware and help yous deal with loss or theft. At that place are plenty of options to choose from. Nosotros tin assistance you pick the security solution that's right for you and your situation.
Android protection doesn't exist in a vacuum. The products listed hither are all cross-platform solutions, with protection bachelor at least for Windows, macOS, and Android. Most of them also offer some form of iOS protection, though with a characteristic fix that is express past the airtight nature of Apple's operating system.
Our Experts Have Tested 45 Products in the Antivirus Category in the Past Year
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to assistance you make amend buying decisions. (Read our editorial mission.)
Note that the ratings utilize to the product as a whole, on all platforms. They don't necessarily reflect the quality of the Android production. Bad test scores on Windows might drag a product's overall score down fifty-fifty if its Android edition tested fine.
Testing Results From the Labs
Do these Android antivirus utilities work? We look to iii contained testing labs to find out. Nigh all the listed products appear in results from at to the lowest degree one lab; iii bear witness up in all of them.
Researchers at AV-Comparatives challenged each Android antivirus product to defend against over 3,000 prevalent Android malware samples found in the wild. In the latest round of testing, Avira, Bitdefender, One thousand Information, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro scored a perfect 100%.
The latest exam from AV-Test Institute striking 15 Android antivirus solutions with thousands of malware samples. Researchers also installed thousands more non-malicious programs, to make certain that the antivirus didn't wrongly identify them equally malware. They assigned each production up to vi protection points for blocking malware, vi points for minimal touch on performance and battery life, and six usability points for refraining from mistakenly blocking valid programs. All just one of the products we follow scored a perfect 18 points, while Sophos came close with 17.5. The real loser in this exam was Google's own protection, which earned a big nada for protection.
London-based MRG-Effitas tested ten products, nigh of which overlapped with our selection. The testers evaluated each production's ability to detect and eliminate threats before launch, and the ability to detect and neutralize threats during install. They checked more than 160 samples, ranging from Trojans to adware, with some known valid programs thrown in to cheque for false positives. And they noted whether a product caught samples early on or waited until they were nearly to install. Well-nigh all the products we've reviewed earned a perfect 100% score.
Malware Protection and More
All the Android products mentioned here include an antivirus component that scans new apps and offers an on-need browse too. All just a couple of them tin besides run scans on a schedule, a feature peradventure more useful on Windows than Android. All of them also offer some form of prophylactic browsing, to go along you from surfing to URLs that might try to plant malware, or fraudulent sites that might fox yous into giving away your username and password for the login page they imitate.
All these security tools also check your installed apps for potential privacy problems. Typically, they flag programs that take permission to practice things similar view your contacts, scan your telephone call logs, larn your location, or send texts. If a communication app needs admission to contacts, that makes sense. If a goofy game wants to paw through your private info, however, consider deleting information technology.
All but ane of them include antitheft protection for a lost or stolen device. The antitheft outlier is Norton, which dropped this capability in 2019. Y'all can find your device's location on a map. If y'all've just mislaid it around the house, you tin can trigger a noisy warning to help y'all find it. You lot tin can lock the phone to keep a thief out of your apps and information. And if you lot determine that you'll never get the device back, you lot can remotely wipe it. All the apps permit you manage antitheft features using an online console. About of them offer the option of triggering antitheft events using coded text messages, and many of them too surreptitiously snap a photo of whoever is using your device.
One of the outset things a typical smartphone thief does is merits the device by swapping out the SIM menu. Nearly of our recommended apps include some form of SIM carte protection. Some of them lock the device on SIM carte du jour alter. Others notify you of the new phone number, and so you can nonetheless send those coded text letters to invoke antitheft features.
Blocking unwanted calls and texts used to exist a common feature, but ongoing changes to the Android operating arrangement have made it more than hard. Almost half our picks don't offer this feature at present.
Bonus Features
Antivirus and antitheft are core components for any Android security app, simply some go way across the basics. Common bonus features include fill-in for your contacts and photos, a battery monitor to evidence which apps are draining your battery life, and a job killer to send those battery hogs packing. Several of the apps warn when y'all connect to an insecure Wi-Fi network. Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and McAfee let y'all pair your telephone with your Android Vesture, so if you walk abroad from your telephone, your spotter can remind y'all to catch it.
As noted, almost all these security tools scan your installed apps and study on those that might be privacy risks. Norton and Trend Micro take that skill to the next level, reporting on apps as you view them in the Play Store, so you can avert downloading whatever that might be problematic.
VPN protection is more important on mobile devices than desktops, because mobile devices connect to a wide variety of networks. Kaspersky and Bitdefender both include a bandwidth-limited VPN with their Android VPN apps. That'southward nice, just Avast, Avira, and Norton include VPN protection with no bandwidth limit.
A few of these products characteristic less-mutual bonus features. ESET lets you fourth dimension-schedule your call blocking, for case, to allow simply family unit members to call you at nighttime. Trend Micro offers to scan your Facebook settings and warn near whatsoever security problems.
Stay Condom on All Your Devices
So, which one should you choose? It depends on just what yous need to protect, but we assume you want a suite that at least installs on your Windows and Android devices. McAfee Antivirus Plus is an Editors' Choice winning antivirus, with protection for unlimited devices. Kaspersky Security Cloud and Norton 360 Palatial are both Editors' Choice picks for cantankerous-platform security suites, and both get excellent lab scores on Windows and Android. Bitdefender Full Security also pulls in superlative lab scores and offers a cornucopia of features on Windows; information technology's our Editors' Choice winner for security mega-suite. You won't go wrong with one of these four, just the others have their own merits. Click through the links, read the full reviews, and make your choice.
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