Regarding Anti-Virus Apps and Anti-Theft Apps

[shinkaide]

Hey guys, I've seen some threads on this via the search function, but there wasn't much discussion going on on them (also not sure about the scope of the discussions involved in 'em).

I kind of get the vibe that - for the most part - anti-virus apps are not really necessary if you take a decent amount of care with the apps you install, even more so if you mainly stick with stuff found on the Google Play store. They're mostly free apps that have extra features and functions that we might find useful (e.g., Avast Anti-Theft, which you can seemingly only install after installing the main Avast app).

My questions are:
(1) How many of you folks have been using them and found them to be actually useful?
(2) Also, during day-to-day use, have you noticed a signifcant change in your battery life since installing it?
(3) Would you say that these apps perform better than something stand-alone, like say the Prey Project app?

I'm curious about what you guys think.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Hey guys, I've seen some threads on this via the search function, but there wasn't much discussion going on on them (also not sure about the scope of the discussions involved in 'em).

I kind of get the vibe that - for the most part - anti-virus apps are not really necessary if you take a decent amount of care with the apps you install, even more so if you mainly stick with stuff found on the Google Play store. They're mostly free apps that have extra features and functions that we might find useful (e.g., Avast Anti-Theft, which you can seemingly only install after installing the main Avast app).

My questions are:
(1) How many of you folks have been using them and found them to be actually useful?
(2) Also, during day-to-day use, have you noticed a signifcant change in your battery life since installing it?
(3) Would you say that these apps perform better than something stand-alone, like say the Prey Project app?

I'm curious about what you guys think.

I use AVG. There are other functions like if I wanted, I could register my device if lost or stolen, among other features.
1. It does point out if an app is going to be a pain in regard of ads and such. I haven't ever found a virus, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
2. Very little. I am running Carat an app that analyzes battery use and the app estimates an extra 15 or 20 minutes of more use.
3. Can't answer that question as I haven't used Prey Project.

I would highly advise using something. There was a recently discovered Trojan that targeted Androids.

 

[Farish]

The main reason to use an antivirus app is because you sideload apks and are unsure of the sources.

I think an antivirus app is as good as the common sense you use.

Antitheft features are great but most of them require you to have root access to your phone which is not the case for many common users.

I use a battery monitoring app and my antivirus program is very minimal on the battery. I only have it scan when I download an app. I use it because for example Bubble Witch Saga is not available for my device but works perfectly fine on it. So I found the apk and sidedloaded it. I wanted to make sure it didn't have any surprises.

Prey I have used on laptops and thinks it is a great service, no clue about how well it is on Android.

 

[cadzilla74]

Antivirus is somewhat of a misnomer in the Android OS world but the makers of the software find the familiarity is attractive to people who use their brand on their PCs and such. Viruses are not a big issue in Android because apps are running in a separate sandbox most of the time.

What current mobile "antivirus" programs do provide is anti-malware, anti-Trojan and anti-hijacking protection which are things that can cause issues and have turned up even in Google Play Store apps.

I'm using free TrustGo Security.

Nice program with several different functions including remote location, remote wipe and app scanning of course. Small footprint. Doesn't eat a lot of CPU cycles or memory.

I also have Addons Detector installed. Any time I install a new app from Play or Amazon I scan it with this app. If I don't like what an app has brought to the party that doesn't need to be there I uninstall.