Android Anti-Virus Software Reviews

I have recently been trying out some of the free anti virus software on the Google android market to see which ones do a good job in their virus scanners and then adding up other features out there. All of the ones i have tried is the free anti virus apps sense i didn't want to try a lot of different apps just to test them out.


The test I did was a simple test. Just to see how robust the anti virus scanner is on each of the different anti virus apps. I used 3 different test virus to test if the virus scanners had the ability to pick up a test virus app, test virus file and a test virus zip file.

I used the standard EICAR files.

Some of the anti virus apps I tried on a rooted android device. I had the zip and the file on a SD card and the app installed.

norton
lookout
Bitdefender
avast
Dr.Web
avg
antivirus

Antivirus
Antivirus was only able to detect the apps that where installed and did not have the capacity to scan the SD card. Also Antivirus did not have any other nice features like some of the other better made antivirus apps. Like a firewall, web filtering, lost phone location, etc. One annoying thing though is that when ever this antivirus found one of the apps it made you uninstall it and then you had to restart the scan to find any others.

Norton
Nortons free version only really gives you the antivirus scanner which is better than some of the basic virus scanners. Their paid versions may be better.

lookout
Lookout did not detect any of the files on the SD card. This was very sad which makes me even wonder if it works. The app focuses mostly on other aspects of security like finding your lost phone and what not. Though the scanning side of it was practically useless.

Bitdefender
Bitguard did not find the SD card virus files. Bitdefender does take some time while it runs. Its free version does not come with some of the nicer features like avast does for free or others.

Dr.Web
Dr.Web could only find the file on the SD card but not a zipped file.

Avast
Avast was able to detect the install of the file, able to find both files on the SD card. Avast took a little long on scanning the SD card than some others though it did well in detecting and had the ability to scan zip files. Avast comes with anti theft and also a firewall. All in all this antivirus like their desktop version offers a lot for their free version. I am looking forward to seeing it be developed more and add more features to it. Right now I would give this the best basic review that I have done on these anti virus. Some things I like to see are selective file scans added. But on a side note the files are scanned when they are downloaded.

AVG
AVG like Avast did well in its scans. Though it also added some nice features like checking settings in its scans letting me know that i was using the root account and that i allowed unknown apks to be installed. Things like this help users stay a little more secure. Though if your using root i hope that you know what your doing anyways. AVG does have more features in their paid versions but I was not able to try those out. Comparable to Avast though with less features in the free version.


All in all these are some of the virus scanners I tried just picking up a basic test virus to see the function of the scanners to see how robust they are. This does not mean that any of these would be able to pick up an actual virus. But it does show what their scanners do scan and what they are able to scan. For instance Bitdefender says that it scans the SD card though it did not pick up the test virus which throws into question if it actual scans the sd card. lookout on the other hand does scan the sd card but it is unable to scan inside zip files. which means you may be passing on a virus to your computer or other android devices.

I am very pleased with what AVG and Avast offered. Though I tip my scales to say that Avast did better as they offer more features on top of just the virus scanner in their free version. This helps by not making you have to have multiple different apps to cover the different fields like firewall and anti theft. Just like their desktop anti virus i am pleased with their android antivirus from these initial tests.

If you have an android anti virus that you prefer let us know in comments.

-Local tech repair Admin