Battle Best free antivirus for Android--or no antivirus?

[conceptualclarity]

Just recently started my second smartphone ever during a really difficult period, and am really surprised to see it has no preloaded antivirus. My prior phone had Lookout. Do you agree with those who say no antivirus for Android? If you disagree which one would you choose? And please tell me its pros and cons.

Any other security products you would run on Android?

The phone is a T-Mobile REVEVLRY+, based on Motorola.

 

[gery79]

i use AVG premium

 

[goodjohnjr]

Just recently started my second smartphone ever during a really difficult period, and am really surprised to see it has no preloaded antivirus. My prior phone had Lookout. Do you agree with those who say no antivirus for Android? If you disagree which one would you choose? And please tell me its pros and cons.

Any other security products you would run on Android?

The phone is a T-Mobile REVEVLRY+, based on Motorola.

Android comes with Google Play Protect, which you can enable from your settings in the Google Play Store, I recommend having that enabled & all the settings for it; it is better than nothing, automatic, free, by Google, comes with Android, et cetera.

If you want, you can also add a free third party antivirus that can automatically scan whenever an app is updated or installed, like Bitdefender Antivirus (Free); which is free, lightweight, only requires maybe two permissions (if you enable the option to scan memory cards), scans automatically, do not annoy you with a lot of ads, and is from a respected company.

You can also change your Private DNS setting to something like the public AdGuard DNS Default server or Quad9 DNS, and use a web browser like Brave Browser that has built-in ad / tracker / malicious website blocking; this gives you free blocking of several annoyances / threats at the DNS level.

 

[ForgottenSeer 98186]

F-Secure