I kind of just remembered the early days of having an android and trying to figure out whats the best free antivirus to install . I had for a long time was users AVG for my Samsung star and honestly i kind of miss the stress of it since we started getting security updates from Google and phone manufacturers is there still a need for an antivirus on your phone ? are we really safe form viruses and malware i just got to know now how best to test it .
“Still”? I never knew you never needed it for your phone in the first place.
The operating system structure and app security module on iOS means antivirus /anti-malware apps literally can’t do anything to check for malware unless you’ve got a jail broken iPhone… which is significantly worse than running stock iOS without any anti-malware.
Older Android devices could theoretically benefit but anything android 11+ won’t work because of Scoped Storage, which is another mandatory privacy and security feature that Google introduced to harden Android in ways similar to iOS.
Also every Android device has Google Play’s integrated anti-malware scanning anyway, and Samsung devices have their own anti-malware suite built in in addition to the Google Play scanning.
In fact, Samsung actually advises against using 3rd party anti-malware apps on their website so not only is it not needed on modern mobile operating systems, it is actively not recomended at all.
Depends, how often do you side load an APK?
Use common sense.
I’m going to download a mega mansion from YOUhouseINspace4Free.never
Anti-malware on phones is a scam, all it does is hog resources (if it does anything at all - most only do passive scans when asked). Just be sensible and don’t download garbage or browse garbage websites.
I never bothered. Mainly used Samsung phones which have an inbuilt antivirus scanner. And since I’m using my phone as a basic casual without sideloading or even visiting sketchy websites, I feel pretty safe.
Everyone that seems to think it is not an issue needs to rethink their standpoint. Phones are the next wave of “old school” computers. Literally, everything is being driven to mobile apps. Banking, accounting, bill paying, etc…
If it isn’t a concern, Samsung would not still be upgrading their TotalAV product.
Maleware for phones does exist and you don’t always get them from opening up a program file. Things like XSS, SMS-Worms, spyware do exist.
Most cellphone providers will give you an Antimalware solution. If you have 365, defender is free. I would say things that don’t do active scanning are useless, though.
Anti-virus is a must! My dad got malware on his phone and they tried to ransomware it. He didn’t pay so he lost everything, and then they went after his credit so he had to lock that down and get all new accounts.
So it’s worth it.
If you’re installing apps here there and everywhere, then possibly.
If you just install apps you need, from well known publishers, then you’ll probably be fine. The problem is that Android protects apps data from other apps (except for some assistive/system apps), so even if you do have an antivirus/malware app, how much is it actually going to achieve? Any malware that can escape the Android sandbox is probably going to escape anti-software too.
Don’t get me started on the whole “PWA” install process from the web, that’s another poop-storm that’s going to possibly open phones to malware…
LOL Apple isn’t safe either. Everything can be compromised. Apple used to use first world engineering, like Boeing used to. That’s quite expensive. It’s only YOUR data/life that’s in peril. Not theirs.
Tell me I can still download ram, right?
Maybe…
The hole discussing is if it works.
Yes your dad got unlucky, but whould the same have happened, of he had antivirus?
As some say, antivirus is restricted the same way apps are, so if a malware/virus kan bypass this, what makes you think it can’t bypass antivirus?