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Antivirus Free from AVG not necessary on the Bionic?

T

thethreelaws

Member
This may be related to another point mentioned in the OP of the thread about known issues. It mentions a different antivirus program, but it may be the same issue. The guy at the Verizon store told me that the Bionic already has its own antivirus built in (which he heard about from the Verizon tech that he was talking to on the phone at that moment).

Is that true? If so, is it part of the Android OS, or something that Verizon added tot heir customized version of the OS on their Bionics?
 
Response from johngalt (which I will respond to after I get the rest of my 'Questions' threads created)...

johnlgalt said:
Q3.
Not that I know of. And I do not see the reason for for an AV program in the first place on an Android-based machine - at least, not yet - *nix based OSs are the least targeted machines thus far because it's way too easy for a developer to patch out exploits that Malware writers use to gain control / access / elevated privileges on your device.

Android ain't Windows....
Click to expand...
 
Android pulls two dozen virus-infected apps from the Market, over 30,000 users affected

Is Android becoming a virus haven? More and more malware-infected applications appear on the Market raising this question once again after Google removed 58 apps containing viruses in March. Just over the last weekend the company pulled an additional two dozen of them in an attempt to clear its application storefront. Mobile security company Lookout estimates the number of affected users between 30,000 and 120,000.

"This weekend, multiple applications available in the official Android Market were found to contain malware that can compromise a significant amount of personal data. Likely created by the same developers who brought DroidDream to market back in March, more than 25 applications were found to be infected with a stripped down version of DroidDream we're calling 'Droid Dream Light' (DDLight)," the company commented.

A developer tipped Lookout to put them in the know about modified versions of his applications being distributed on the Android Market.

The list of virus-infected applications as presented by Lookout follows below: Developer: Magic Photo Studio


  1. Sexy Girls: Hot Japanese
  2. Sexy Legs
  3. HOT Girls 4
  4. Beauty Breasts
  5. Sex Sound
  6. Sex Sound: Japanese
  7. HOT Girls 1
  8. HOT Girls 2
  9. HOT Girls 3

Developer: Mango Studio


  1. Floating Image Free
  2. System Monitor
  3. Super StopWatch and Timer
  4. System Info Manager
Developer: BeeGoo


  1. Quick Photo Grid
  2. Delete Contacts
  3. Quick Uninstaller
  4. Contact Master
  5. Brightness Settings
  6. Volume Manager
  7. Super Photo Enhance
  8. Super Color Flashlight
  9. Paint Master

Developer: DroidPlus


  1. Quick Cleaner
  2. Super App Manager
  3. Quick SMS Backup
Developer: E.T. Team
  1. Call End Vibrate


Developer: GluMobi


  1. Tetris
  2. Bubble Buster Free
  3. Quick History Eraser
  4. Super Compass and Leveler
  5. Go FallDown !
  6. Solitaire Free
  7. Scientific Calculator
  8. TenDrip
Click to expand...

Android Application List The Trojan Virus Infected | accesstechno.com
 
think about this. you can do everything on your smart phone as you can on your pc. would you use your PC without AV? so why are there no elite AV solutions for android? this is like windows XP prior to SP2. plenty of people getting hacked.
 
Ummm, and does an AV program for Android use heuristics to detect virus-like activity from files without a matching malware signature?

While I feel bad for those users infected, some of those apps are no better than the fake pr0n sites that are nothing but gateways for drive by infections...

Some of those others, well, they may, in fact seem to work, but...I like to stick to tried, tested and true apps.
 
hate to thread jack this but @three do you really need to create a thread for every tiny question? it is clogging up the front page!
 
its not just apps your gonna get viruses from. surfing the web and hackers getting your phones IP address. a true anti virus solution for android needs to met promptly or there is gonna be big trouble. put PC's on the back burner. the new hacking frontier is mobile devices.
 
xiteg79 said:
hate to thread jack this but @three do you really need to create a thread for every tiny question? it is clogging up the front page!
Click to expand...

Yes, b/c having 6 (or 12, or 18, or anything over 3 really) issues in one thread makes it confusing if people don't copy and paste which issue they are replying to.

He was advised to do so by a moderator, so I think it's best if you left this alone.
 
kingnut said:
its not just apps your gonna get viruses from. surfing the web and hackers getting your phones IP address. a true anti virus solution for android needs to met promptly or there is gonna be big trouble. put PC's on the back burner. the new hacking frontier is mobile devices.
Click to expand...

So, explain how Android is more vulnerable than *nix to hacking / malware again? I just don't see it.
 
because android is more popular to end users than desktop linux. a bunch of people putting all their personal information on their mobile device and doing financial transactions daily through them. hackers are gonna work extremely hard to exploit the weaknesses in the android OS to get information. do you not agree?
 
Sorry to be dense if that's what's going on here in my head, but.....where are we at on this?

I will add one more piece of data to the mix that I heard from a friend...

He said that the reason he has AVG Antivirus Free on his Android is because of how it scans apps upon install.

He said that it doesn't necessarily do much else that's useful, but this one thing is helpful, because it may help prevent some kind of infection just simply by seeing it there when it's being installed.

I think he said that it only scans according to the actual file name and compares it to a list. So, in that sense, it isn't very sophisticated, and doesn't do heuristics like we see in virus protection on regular desktop computers, but if this is true (that it at least compares app names to a 'BAD' list upon install), isn't that worth having it on the device...

...or is it actually interfering with something on the Android system like the tech guy originally told me?
 
Andriod as a whole is pretty safe, however there are some apps you need to be aware of, as stated before. I use Lookout and ESET mobile security, why two? Because one offers feature the other doesn't and vice-versa.

Personally I would use anything from AVG, their programs a bloated and useless.
 
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