Solved Experiences of anti-virus for Android

[Golden]

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience running an anti-virus application on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 running the Android OS?

I've seen a free Avast one that I am partial at trying, but would welcome other suggestions/comments from experience.

Regards,
Golden

 

[yowanvista]

There is no Android Malware, all those allegedly called 'Malware' are just rogue Apps (Fake Angry Birds alike) like on any other platform. The term "Android Malware" doesn't exist by definition. Current rogue Apps which will in no be in way a danger to the Android OS. Android runs all Apps in a Virtual Machine (Dalvik VM) so anything remains contained there.

Android uses Sandboxing and that also means that anti-virus apps are largely useless for protection (except for anti theft). They don't have access to the low level system files, so they cannot protect anything. At best those antivirus will compare your already-installed apps with their online database and do some checks here and there but they are basically useless for anything else.

Remember Google engineer Chris DiBona's eye-opening Google Plus post:
"Virus companies are playing on your fears to try to sell/provide you BS protection software for Android, RIM and IOS. They are charlatans and scammers."

No Android rogue app can install itself automatically without user intervention and/or conceals itself as a legitimate process or that does anything to access other resources outside the Dalvik VM.

Those who claim that Android has 'Malware' those are the same people who have zero clue about how the platform works inside out. AV Companies especially, spreading their almost-useless software, claiming that they protect the system.

Just download Apps from the Play Store, avoid low rated Apps and keep "Allow installation of apps from other sources(Unknown Sources)" disabled.
I've been using Android for almost 3 years and haven't yet encountered any single of that so called "Malware".

 

[Golden]

Excellent - thanks mate!