Android has become the most used OS around the world, even overtaking none other than Windows. In addition to mobiles and tablets, Google’s system is also used in a lot more devices, which has increased the OS’ usage in recent years. This is why it gets more attention than Windows in terms of being attacked, making it the target of malware and many more threats. This means that having additional security is recommended, therefore it is important to know which antiviruses are the best for Android in 2017.
AV-Test, a security firm, is back with a selection of the best antiviruses for Android in 2017. In order to come up with it, they ran thorough security tests on the most common solutions that we install in our devices. Its relevance is essential nowadays since 600,000 new malware samples created specially to attack Google’s OS are spotted each month.
As usual, AV-Test has tested up to 20 security apps for Android in different categories. The first category is protection and the second category is usability, which is the impact the app has on the system’s performance in terms of slowing it down and battery consumption. Finally, a category for any extra features offered by each app is highlighted.
6,000 malware samples are tested in total. Firstly, 3,200 of said samples are hidden in the apps to test if they can be detected. Secondly, the other 2,800 are already inside apps that have been branded as infected (antivirus vendors usually know about them up to four weeks in advance).
Knowing this, the antiviruses for Android getting the highest scores in 2017 are:
- AhnLab V3 Mobile Security
- Antiy AVL
- Bitdefender Mobile Security
All of the aforementioned solutions got the highest scores in the protection and usability categories. However, only Bitdefender, McAfee, Sophos, Norton and Trend Micro got a 100% protection rate while the rest got rates over 99.5%