Best Free Antivirus App for Android

Android's increasing popularity has led to increased security threats, ranging from common malware to phishing. Many software vendors have launched their own apps in order to help Android users to deal with these issues, but paying 29+ bucks/year for a complete mobile security app doesn't look like a good deal, specially when there's a wide selection of free security apps that will cover all your needs starting with simple antivirus with some extra features to complete security suites with Anti-Theft capabilities.

When evaluating the product, each review considers the following:

• Antivirus: The app’s ability to detect, clean and/or delete infected files. The test is made by trying to send and install 5 APKs infected with aggressive viruses like the infamous android.dream (among others). As a parallel test for the real-time protection capabilities, the EICAR Antivirus Test was used.

• Web Protection: If provided, it evaluates the program's ability to block effectively websites identified as phishing / malicious while browsing.

• Anti-theft: It considers the effectiveness of the tools provided to             protect / find / block / recover your phone if lost or stolen.

• Privacy: The app’s ability of listing all your installed applications and classify their risk based on the permissions they require to run, as some of these may be considered as a privacy breach.

• Extra tools: Many apps include a set of extra tools to keep you protected. Some of them may include Call & SMS filtering, App protection, Contacts Back-up & Restore among others. Their performance and usefulness help to evaluate the app as a whole.

• System resources: No matter how good the Antivirus may be, it will not be considered a great app if it turns to be a RAM hog or a battery drainer; after all, we do not want to kill apps just to keep our AV working or charge our phone twice a day.

Now that we have a clear idea, here are some of the best (and of course, free) security apps for your Android device.

Antivirus Free - Lookout Mobile Security is a true veteran because it's one of the first security and antivirus apps developed for the Android platform and therefore has a lot of experience concerning mobile security. After its installation, the app will scan all the programs installed on your device automatically in order to protect your device and beloved data from unwanted viruses, spyware or other potential malware. It also does an automatic scan whenever you try to install a new app to your device. In addition, you can schedule a scan of the apps on your device at a frequency, day and/or time slot to your liking but you can't choose specific locations or directories, so you have to stick to the app's default options. 

As a bonus feature, Lookout includes a phone-locator feature (labeled as Missing Device)  that allows you to locate your missing and beloved phone using Google maps even with the GPS turned off, or use your login in myLookout.com to locate your phone using a browser. You can also use your login to back up your contacts in myLookout.com and restore them to an existing mobile device.

Even tough Lookout is starting to lose its initial shine due to a bunch of new alternatives, it works well when it comes to malware detection and cleaning and it doesn’t have major drawbacks except for a somewhat high RAM usage (around 25 MB when fully working) and a 2% of battery consumption. The biggest downside, however, is that some key features, like Safe Browsing, Remote Lock & Wipe and the Privacy Advisor are only available to the paid version, which seems odd considering that many free apps include those features by default.

avast! Mobile Security has emerged as one of the most complete security apps for Android by trying to cover every possible concern we users may have.

Once installed, Avast! will add an icon in the notification tray, you can disable it, but by doing so you'll lose some of the functionality offered by the included antivirus engine which provides real-time scanning and checks the apps you installed for malware. You can also schedule automatic virus scan tasks by day/hour and choose between Apps, the SD Card or both. When it comes to apps, the Privacy Advisor informs you about all the permissions granted to the installed apps and lists the potential privacy issues they may have whilst the Applications Management acts as a task killer.

The Web Shield protection will warn you of any infected URL it may find while you're browsing and the SMS & Call Filtering can block both the outgoing and the incoming calls from private numbers, selected contacts and single numbers that you've added to a determined group (you can create more than one group and add specific days/hours to block their incoming calls & SMSs). A call from any number within your “filtered” groups will vibrate your phone for ½ a sec so you can know your caller's ID but the caller will receive the classic “out of range/service” message from your operator almost immediately. Note that you can't block outgoing SMSs though.

The two features that make Avast! a complete security suite are the Firewall and the Anti-Theft functions. With the Firewall activated, you can disable Internet access in any kind of network (WiFi, 3G and Roaming) to avoid expensive Internet connection fares, block specific apps and keep hackers away, consider however, that the firewall needs a rooted device to work, otherwise it simply won’t work.

The Anti-Theft feature is one of the best around as long as you have a rooted device. If this is your case, very advanced options like Self-Protection (app uninstalling prevention and USB disabling) and Remote Settings Change will be available. If your phone is not rooted, you can still use some useful tools that will allow you to hide the Anti-Theft component (App Disguiser), hide the app icon (Stealth Mode), manage the SIM permissions (SIM Change Notification and Trusted SIM Cards) and use SMS commands to trigger special actions such as alarms and geo-location in case your phone gets missing or stolen. You need to be connected to the internet when enabling Anti-Theft for the first time to perform some short checks and possible updates but since this happens only once, consider it just a minor issue.

Avast! Mobile Security proved to be a rock solid security app for Android since it detected and cleaned all the malware I threw at it and the Web Shield did the rest by blocking all the malicious URLs it found while browsing. The app also did a good job at keeping the RAM consumption within acceptable ranges even when fully working (13-15 MB) and it did not have any serious impact on the battery usage (about 0.75%). The not-so-sweet part about Avast! is that you need a rooted phone to use it at its fullest and it also lacks the ability to back up and restore contacts online, otherwise it’s an excellent option to secure your Android phone and it's offered completely free.

Alternatively, AVG Anti-Virus Free offers some good features for your Android phone. Unlike other apps, AVG won't scan your phone automatically after its installation and will prompt you to scan your phone manually but the task is really easy and it's just a simple tap away. When scanning, AVG will search for malware and other security threats and will inform you of any issues it may have found (no detailed information, just a brief description) by listing them inside four categories: Apps, Settings, Content and Media. If you have a rooted phone (a.k.a. superuser privileges) it can be flagged as vulnerability and the app will offer to fix it for you, therefore users with rooted phones must be careful when choosing what to fix, otherwise you may end with an un-rooted phone by mistake.

AVG provides real-time scanning, secure web surfing and you can also set it to scan text messages, program its auto-scan frequency (daily, weekly, off) and accelerate the scanning speed by checking the Advanced Scan option.  You can update the virus definitions too, but you'll have to it manually. Note that AVG won’t add a permanent icon in your notification tray in order to give you real-time protection as with other products but a notification will appear whenever you install a new app or some auto-scan task is initiated / finished.

The included Anti-Theft feature allows you to use location-based services to find your lost/stolen device (using Google Maps) but you must register for the free service first in order to use it. Once you’re logged into your account you can use the browser to send 6 online commands to your phone: Shout (it triggers an “alarm” which, by the way, turns out to be your current ringtone), Locate, Lock, Unlock, Wipe and Scan. However, those commands take some time to get to your phone (up to 90 seconds) and require an active internet connection on your phone’s side to work, otherwise they won’t. The only exception so far seems to be the Locate option that can help you to find your device using your phone number and your provider’s phone network (you still need a browser anyway) but it’s not accurate, and that’s pretty much it; there are no additional security features such as SIM protection and if you want to use SMS commands or any other offline option to find your device, you have to pay for the Pro version.

The free AVG app also offers a set of tools as a bonus. Unfortunately, all but the Task Killer are either 14-day trial versions (the App Locker and the App Backup) or beta-stage functions (File Scanner, System Tune-up and Wipe Personal Data) but they did their job without any evident problems anyway.

AVG Anti-Virus Free boasts a great malware detection engine that detected and blocked all the infected files I tried to install and its web surfing protection did a good job too. It also kept its RAM usage a little below the average (9-12 MB) as it did with the battery usage (0.66%).  However, there are some things that affect the AVG app as a whole: It is ad-supported and it doesn't include extra features such as call filtering or contact data backup; it also falls short on the Anti-Theft department due to the lack of truly offline options to find your phone. Although it does a great job detecting and cleaning malware and other security threats, there’s a feeling that AVG Anti-Virus Free could do a little better as a security suite.

As a new contender in the Android platform, Comodo Mobile Security & Antivirus Free has its own share of characteristics starting with the obvious antivirus plus some handy utilities that should help protecting your privacy and data.

After the install, Comodo will check for updates automatically but it will require your confirmation to download them. As with other applications, Comodo also adds an icon in the notifications tray but you can disable it (as you can disable the automatic update check) but it does not seem to affect any protection functionality. After everything is set, you can tap on the Health Check button in the main screen to check you device. After the scan, the app will list the results under three categories: Dangerous, Pending and Secure Items and will add a description of the respective issues (if found). You can also schedule scan tasks, but you cannot choose specific locations.

Besides the antivirus, Comodo also included some useful tools. The Process Manager is basically a redesigned task killer that shows the current memory used by your phone and it lists the number of running processes while the Call & SMS Blocking will do what its name suggests. The Private Space will allow you to classify any contact or single phone number as “private”, so whenever you want to call or send a SMS to those numbers, you have to write a password first. The Software Manager is split into My Software (which lists all the installed apps, the available space and lets you uninstall the programs) and the App Protector, which protects any installed app you want with a password. Be careful when uninstalling Comodo though, as you have to clear any protected app from the list before, otherwise those apps will not work after you uninstall Comodo (the app does not warn you about this issue).

The recently added Anti-theft feature mixes both online and offline options. You can send the location of your phone to another one (Remote locate), send a SMS to a friend’s number in case your SIM is changed (SIM Change Alerts) and use SMS commands to trigger an Alarm as well as password protect your phone’s main screen remotely (Remote Device Lock). You can also erase any important information ranging from contacts to a full SD card wipe remotely (Remote Device Wipe).

Comodo Mobile Security seemed to be a very good app with an acceptable RAM usage (10-16 MB) and the impact on the battery was not that bad either (0.88%). Unfortunately, it couldn’t detect 1 of the 5 infected files and it also failed on the EICAR Antivirus test; the lack of a web protection option didn’t help to increase its rating as a security suite either. That is why (despite its good intentions and some useful tools) Comodo is very hard to recommend as the primary line of defense for your phone unless it improves its current detection rates in upcoming versions.

More apps in revision:

• Zoner AntiVirus Free
• NetQin Security & Anti-virus
• Webroot Security & Antivirus
• Dr.Web Anti-virus Light
• Creative Antivirus Free
• Norton Security and Antivirus

You might want to check out these articles too:

• Best Free Antivirus Software
• Best Free Android Apps
• Best Free iPad Apps
• Best Free iPhone Apps

This software category is maintained by volunteer editor BerkuT. Registered members can contact the editor with any comments or questions they might have by clicking here.

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