This is free consumer anti-virus for Android, with optional paid upgrade tiers available for purchase inside the app and elsewhere. All three got 100% protection scores in all tests by both testing houses, with no false positives. A number of third-party anti-malware tools achieved 100% protection in all of these tests.īased on data from those testing houses, here are three top third-party antivirus apps for Android. Play Protect by itself performed worse in recent tests by AV-Test and AV Comparatives than its rivals, protecting against 81.7% of malware in AV Comparatives’ 2021 tests, 80.7% of malware in AV-Test’s real world exposure tests, and 90% of malware in a sample set of recent Android malware. Third-party tools only ever supplement Play Protect, rather than replacing it. Google Play Protect is Android’s built-in malware protection. Here’s our guide to telling apart real defenders from dangerous fakes. There are lots of antivirus apps for Android but not all are created equal. So while it’s not necessary to install Android antivirus software, it might be a good idea, particularly if you’re prone to trying out lots of random apps. Only installing reputable apps is a good bet, but some malicious apps rack up hundreds of thousands of installs, so popularity isn’t any way to judge. These Trojan horses look desirable, but can steal your data, riddle your device with adverts, or otherwise co-opt your phone for their own purposes.

With an estimated 3,739 new apps uploaded every day, malware does periodically sneak through. However threats can and do appear on Google Play.

It’s good security sense to only use reputable app stores and avoid sideloading (manually downloading and installing) APK files from other sites unless you’re really sure of what you’re doing.

Antimalware android