Battle Best free antivirus for android

Ink

Administrator
Verified
Jan 8, 2011
22,490
Quite a few people will feel offended now. 😄
Reasons explained.

It would be an entirely different scenario had OP provided information about the given choices, and why they couldn't decide. For example; Unable to decide between several key features between X, Y and Z. Can you help me decide?

Unfortunately no information is provided, therefore we are only able to second guess the nature of the question. What did you gather from "what is the best" and "vote"? If you've been on the web for long enough, "what is the best" doesn't solve anything for anyone.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

Edit: Not intended to offend, unless you get offended.
 

Kongo

Level 36
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Feb 25, 2017
2,597
Reasons explained.

It would be an entirely different scenario had OP provided information about the given choices, and why they couldn't decide. For example; Unable to decide between several key features between X, Y and Z. Can you help me decide?

Unfortunately no information is provided, therefore we are only able to second guess the nature of the question. What did you gather from "what is the best" and "vote"? If you've been on the web for long enough, "what is the best" doesn't solve anything for anyone.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

Edit: Not intended to offend, unless you get offended.
My favorite teacher used to say that there ain't stupid questions but stupid answers. Not meant to insult you but you don't know the intention of the question asked above. Maybe he's just interested in our personal opinions... :unsure:
 

bayasdev

Level 19
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Sep 10, 2015
901
Android AVs are of little utility, they can't protect your device integrity against targeted attacks but kernel level mitigations such as SELinux can.


There is also a security focused custom ROM called GrapheneOS which ships with even more restrictive SELinux policies, a hardened kernel, full disk encryption and more. Sadly it's only available for Pixel devices.

TBH I dislike Samsung's KNOX but it effectively detects when the device has been tampered with non-official OS/recovery by burning a physical efuse located on the phone's mainboard and permanently changing the warranty bit to 0x1, if the user haven't purposedly installed a custom ROM the device should be discarded to protect data security.
 

Evjl's Rain

Level 47
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Honorary Member
Top Poster
Content Creator
Malware Hunter
Apr 18, 2016
3,684
if I have to pick 1, it will be Bitdefender or kaspersky
if I can choose another, I would choose Virustotal.com
before installing any apk, upload it to VT. If kaspersky, BD, avast, norton, drweb say it's malicious, then don't install it
apps from play store is generally safe, not always but most of the time

there is no need for a realtime AV on android
 

uninfected1

Level 11
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Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 28, 2016
529
Sophos Intercept X is the best.
Agreed, as do a lot of others here, and the poll doesn't even include it. Sophos is fully featured and has web protection but is still fairly light. Many of the other free apps such as Bitdefender and Kaspersky have no web protection. Avast does, but when I used it some time ago it had loads of adverts and really slowed things down.

So for me it's Sophos without question.
 

zoran popovic

Level 7
Verified
Well-known
Sep 26, 2019
318
Here are some opinions on av programs for android:









 
F

ForgottenSeer 89360

Sophos if you want pshishing/malware protection whilw browsing.

Bitdefender if you just want regular app scan
Sophos is not good against phishing and the threats it will block whilst browsing will be Windows threats. Trend Micro with default-deny for web or NextDNS when set-up to block websites newer than 30 days is the real deal for anyone who wants to stay away from phishing.
 

uninfected1

Level 11
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Well-known
Jan 28, 2016
529
Sophos is the only free option that offers web protection for android as far as i know. Do you know any other free mobile AV that offer this feature?
It's some time since I used it but the free Avast app had web protection but it had loads of ads and was very resource heavy for me. Sophos is much better and regarding its effectiveness against phishing threats, I always found it pretty good. Whenever I've tried it with random samples from phishtank it blocks most of them. It also passes the AMTSO phishing test:
 

Tiamati

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Nov 8, 2016
574
You can download even the official Trend Micro product and without activation or anything, web protection will be available.
Ty!

i am using kaspersky however i am using premium one . Really Excellent protection to invest in
I don't use Kaspersky premium anymore cause it lacks support for many browsers, like Edge and Brave :oops:
 

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