Originally Posted by
B. Diddy My few cents:
For the most part, it's still quite difficult to get an actual virus on your phone, because malware requires you to manually accept the installation (which is why they try to fool you into thinking you're installing something legitimate). Use common sense:
Even for those few viruses that silently install themselves in Windows, most Windows viruses are simple scripts, easily manipulated by "script kiddies" (wannabe software developers), and there are enough of them detected by easily-changed parts of the script, so there's always a threat.
In Android it's different. There's no built-in scripting engine, so a virus or other malware has to be an actual app, actually written by someone who actually knows what he's doing - and there aren't many people like that, even writing legitimate apps. (A lot of the apps in Play have comments about the app being a joke, or not working - supposedly legitimate apps.) People who can actually start with a blank page in Android Studio and write a half-decent virus don't - they write apps that do it the way
they want it done, then release them on Play, and if they charge 99 cents, and the app is really great, they become kind of rich. Becoming known as the developer who developed apps A, B and C, when those are great apps, is a lot more satisfying than the nebulous thrill of "maybe my virus ruined someone's phone today. Even Zuckerberg (and Facebook always has bugs and glitches) is thought of as pretty good. Kevin Mitnick? Not so much.
The vast majority of known Android viruses have been installed on the back of dubious apps - apps you will no longer find in the Google Play store. By default Android does not allow you to install apps from other sources, so there's no chance of you accidentally installing something nefarious.
