Slashdot Mirror
Two-Thirds of Android Antivirus Apps Are Total BS (tomsguide.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Guide: Austrian antivirus-testing lab AV-Comparatives tested 250 antivirus apps in Google Play against 2,000 malware samples. They found that only 80 of the apps could stop even a minimal amount of malware. "Less than one in 10 of the apps tested defended against all 2,000 malicious apps, while over two-thirds failed to reach a block rate of even 30 percent," the lab said in a press release. To make sure you're protecting your Android device properly, stick to apps from well-known antivirus companies. Basically, AV-Comparatives said, most Android antivirus apps are phony, and many of them seemed to have been created only to display ads or promote a developer's career. "The main purpose of these apps seems to be generating easy revenue for their developers, rather than actually protecting their users," the AV-Comparatives report said.
I am highly suspicious there is even a single AV app that is of any use, even if not actively harmful.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So does that mean of the 2000, that 200 were OK? Care to give us a list?
The answer to your questions, including the full list, are in the first link from the summary. Please, learn to use your left mousse button before posting on slashdot.
The good ones, according to the article from the second link, are:
Twenty-three apps did detect all malware samples AV-Comparatives threw at them, including Tom's Guide's top three picks: Bitdefender Mobile Security, Norton Mobile Security and Avast Mobile Security.
Our sixth-place pick, Psafe DFNDR, was also in the 100-percent category, although AV-Comparatives noted that DFNDR used Avast's antivirus engine and had not updated itself to run properly on Android 8 Oreo and later. Lookout Mobile Security, our No. 5 pick, was a little behind the others with 99.6 percent. (Google's own Play Protect antivirus software did poorly, with a detection rate of only 69 percent.
most Android antivirus apps are phony, and many of them seemed to have been created only to display ads
And this is surprising . . . . . why?
This is what happens when you create an environment based on "give everything away for free and make money from advertising".
and that's being extremely generous
..ought to clue anyone in that the vast majority of them are absolutely bogus. there's probably less than a couple dozen legitimate developers of consumer 'antivirus' products, total, globally, with the resources to even have half a chance at developing and maintaining an 'anti malware' app for android that actually works.
We really need to get antivirus down to a charity level of business...
It's possible to scan files on an Android device with ClamAV, a couple of different ways. As long as you get a rootable device, you can access enough files to make it worth scanning.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Viruses haven't been a problem for a long time. Not when apps keep asking for permissions for things they shouldn't need, and trick/confuse the user into volunteering their personal data.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
The top 25 programs tested scored a hundred per cent detection rate and there were more below that in the high nineties, so the negative judgement is bit harsh. Moreover the ones that passed are all the usual suspects like Kaspersky, Avira, Avast etc which anyone with any knowledge would be more likely to buy, rather than some weird unknown brand.
The moral is to stick with the established brands that you know.