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Do y'all use any anti virus or whatever?

thisISjoel

thisISjoel

Android Enthusiast
I've come over from Apple a while ago, so never had to think about it before. I think I'm pretty careful with my browsing and stuff so I'm not uber worried about it but I just thought I'd ask you bros if you use/would recommend anything?
 
Never bothered with one, I'm also careful with what I click.

I know some people swear by anti virus but I don't personally need one.
 
Nope, none. I'm careful. Even when I'm in the play store I'll never install wallpapers unless it needs no special permissions. As for browsing, I only really go on tech sites on my phone
 
Their is no reason to if you download from known sources ie.. the ad store, Amazon app store and such.
 
Nope, waste of resources. Used to use Lookout for it's device location features, but now Google has that built in with the Device manager. It's linux, after all.
 
Necessary or not, I installed Avast! antivirus (free), which also included an anti-theft package.

It doesn't take much room or use much in the way of resources, so I consider it a useful source of additional protection.
 
Not needed. There's NO active Linux or Android viruses. NONE. There is some malware, yes. Viruses are a type of malware, but not all malware is a virus. That's very important distinction to keep in mind. Viruses are a much more serious problem than other types of malware.
 
even though i do not use one myself but i think its not unreasonable to use one. android being linux etc. arguments are not really very strong. malware writers target windows mainly because most of the world uses it. most bang for the buck as you may say. as android is so popular it will be targeted eventually. also now a days most crackers do not try to infect you with viruses anymore, they look for an excuse to leave with with a dropper malware. that eventually downloads a trojan or something at its leisure.
and i have seen suspicious looking ads on legit websites. xda forums had one couple of months ago.
 
Nope

Google regularly scans the playstore for malicious apps. If you download from the play store and pay attention to app permissions you're about as safe as can be

Android apps are also sandboxed, which limits the damage any malware could have. Its also important to note any antivirus app you install is also going to be sandboxed, limiting its ability to actually do anything ;)
 
Rxpert83 said:
Nope

Google regularly scans the playstore for malicious apps. If you download from the play store and pay attention to app permissions you're about as safe as can be

Android apps are also sandboxed, which limits the damage any malware could have. Its also important to note any antivirus app you install is also going to be sandboxed, limiting its ability to actually do anything ;)
Click to expand...

not if they have root/su access. ;)

And yea getting a malicious app on the store for more than a day or 2 is hard. Hell the last app I tried to publish to the store didnt make it because I left the root function stuff in it, just had the button set to not show. lol
 
JBentleyR said:
Necessary or not, I installed Avast! antivirus (free), which also included an anti-theft package.

It doesn't take much room or use much in the way of resources, so I consider it a useful source of additional protection.
Click to expand...

Has a scan ever uncovered anything?
 
You'll get more false positives than anything. The root apps superuser or superSU tend to get flagged.

If you're using avast for the anti-theft features, you can setup the anti-theft and uninstall Avast and the anti-theft portion stays behind ;)
 
Rxpert83 said:
You'll get more false positives than anything. The root apps superuser or superSU tend to get flagged.

If you're using avast for the anti-theft features, you can setup the anti-theft and uninstall Avast and the anti-theft portion stays behind ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I suppose I could easily remove the AV component if any problems arise, then. For now, though, I think I'll leave it alone as it's not doing any harm.
 
JBentleyR said:
Necessary or not, I installed Avast! antivirus (free), which also included an anti-theft package.

It doesn't take much room or use much in the way of resources, so I consider it a useful source of additional protection.
Click to expand...

I too, use Avast!. For free, why the hell not.
 
thisISjoel said:
I've come over from Apple a while ago, so never had to think about it before. I think I'm pretty careful with my browsing and stuff so I'm not uber worried about it but I just thought I'd ask you bros if you use/would recommend anything?
Click to expand...


malwarebytes. I use on phone and computer.
 
I've had avast installed for a couple years. It's got a great security/location suite, which is why I installed it. I have NEVER had any sort of virus warning. I've never run a scan, since that's not why I installed it, but the lack of any sort of warnings over the course of 2ish years tells me the antivirus is pretty unnecessary.

FWIW, I've downloaded a handful of potentially dangerous files. I don't get involved in app piracy, but I've downloaded a handful of MP3's, ebooks, etc.
 
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