Two-Thirds of Android Antivirus Apps Are Total BS (tomsguide.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Guide: Austrian antivirus-testing lab AV-Comparatives tested 250 antivirus apps in Google Play against 2,000 malware samples. They found that only 80 of the apps could stop even a minimal amount of malware. "Less than one in 10 of the apps tested defended against all 2,000 malicious apps, while over two-thirds failed to reach a block rate of even 30 percent," the lab said in a press release. To make sure you're protecting your Android device properly, stick to apps from well-known antivirus companies. Basically, AV-Comparatives said, most Android antivirus apps are phony, and many of them seemed to have been created only to display ads or promote a developer's career. "The main purpose of these apps seems to be generating easy revenue for their developers, rather than actually protecting their users," the AV-Comparatives report said.
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most Android antivirus apps are phony, and many of them seemed to have been created only to display ads
And this is surprising . . . . . why?
This is what happens when you create an environment based on "give everything away for free and make money from advertising".
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The open market for what?
For advertising, well, yeah, it's a wild market.
For information? Well, this article is proof that an open market works. Else, you would never have known that these apps do nothing but display ads.
And of course we all know advertising is purely for our benefit and edification, right?
Just don't try to play dumb with us. You're actually dumber than you know in that.
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We really need to get antivirus down to a charity level of business... too many illegitimate stabs at profit going on here.
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Android is the "total BS" - 2/3 of the antivirus apps on the platform being BULLSHIT = the platform is ~2/3 BULLSHIT. Whatever you feel about AV software, fine, but this isn't even an attempt at the problem. It's a complete charade.
And with the loose permissions on that platform, no doubt some of these anti-malware apps are closer to malware than they are AV.
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We really need to get antivirus down to a charity level of business...
It's possible to scan files on an Android device with ClamAV, a couple of different ways. As long as you get a rootable device, you can access enough files to make it worth scanning.
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So does that mean of the 2000, that 200 were OK? Care to give us a list?
The answer to your questions, including the full list, are in the first link from the summary [av-comparatives.org]. Please, learn to use your left mousse button before posting on slashdot.
The good ones, according to the article from the second link [tomsguide.com], are:
Twenty-three apps did detect all malware samples AV-Comparatives threw at them, including Tom's Guide's top three picks: Bitdefender Mobile Security, Norton Mobile Security and Avast Mobile Security.
Our sixth-place pick, Psafe DFNDR, was also in the 100-percent category, although AV-Comparatives noted that DFNDR used Avast's antivirus engine and had not updated itself to run properly on Android 8 Oreo and later. Lookout Mobile Security, our No. 5 pick, was a little behind the others with 99.6 percent. (Google's own Play Protect antivirus software did poorly, with a detection rate of only 69 percent.
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OTOH, you apparently didn't read even the summary. And are too lazy to read the article.
OTOH, you are an AC.
App Store is enough (Score:2)
As long as you're using your smartphone's official App Store, there's nothing that an antivirus has to do... bad code is recalled by the store, and there's little way to get around the rules of the store.
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As long as you're using your smartphone's official App Store, there's nothing that an antivirus has to do... bad code is recalled by the store, and there's little way to get around the rules of the store.
Right. That's why every AppStore that has ever existed has been filled with malware.
Bad code gets removed . . . eventually. After it has been downloaded a few million times.
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Antivirus can only recall bad code when a signature is distributed.
Re: App Store is enough (Score:2)
The overwhelming majority of apps in the Google Play Store are straight up malware.
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Re: App Store is enough (Score:2)
Source: my own two eyes
Fair Value of Antivirus for Andriod (Score:2)
(Cost of incident) times (frequency the incident has happened)... equates to unknown times zero... antivirus is currently worthless.
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In all fairness, the other third of the antivirus apps also keep dangerous animals at bay [youtube.com].
the Google Play app store (Score:2, Informative)
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is a shithole of junkware, anything good is buried under a thousands of shitware that is not worth bothering to download, Google should be ashamed of Google Play for allowing it to become just a HUGE pile of shitware
Proper vetting of apps would cost them too many Shekels.
We can't have that now, can we?
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Strangely though, I never feel the need to install thousands of apps to find that out, and love the apps that I know are good and have had installed on every phone for like 10 years now.
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Yeah, because the iTunes store is not also full of shitware...
Have you ever tried searching for "Flashlight" on iTunes? How many apps are there? Tons of them are loaded with ads.
Its the same Junkware on Apple store as Google store.
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Have you ever tried searching for "Flashlight" on iTunes?
Um, no because my fucking iPhone comes with a built in flashlight and I normally search for apps in the App Store, not iTunes. But to the overall point of the article, how many iPhones, iPads, iEtc., have ever had a problem with malware compared to Android?
In what way were any good? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am highly suspicious there is even a single AV app that is of any use, even if not actively harmful.
Re: In what way were any good? (Score:2)
The remaining third of them were "complete B.S."
Re: In what way were any good? (Score:1)
Frontline (that thing you put on your cat) stopped just as many viruses as most antivirus software. A&T basic OS updates do better than google itself
Re:In what way were any good? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand how AV can be of use on a phone, unless it was running as root. If it is running as just another unprivileged UID, it isn't going to do much.
AV on computers may be justified to tick off checkboxes. On phones with mobile operating systems, the real security needs to be at the app stores.
I wish Google could do a two tier security model:
Tier 1 -- default tier, all apps are curated, scanned by Google's AI for potential mischief, and for an app developer to have an app in Tier 1, they must agree to more stringent requirements, and are put on notice that it doesn't take much for them to have their app chucked from the tier. This is what Amazon does with their Android app store.
Tier 2 -- This is what would be the present state of the Google Play Store.
From here, phones should default to only allow Tier 1, and just like sideloading, tell the user that they don't just walk into Mordor if they want to use Tier 2.
This way, there can be a wide variety of apps, but users have a trustworthy source that is actively curated, and where there is zero mercy shown for developer shenanigans.
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- Google already does "Tier 1" as you have it above.
- The purpose of AV apps on Android is to protect you when you allow sideloading. If you use the Amazon app store, or the Aptoide app store, or want Fortnite, then you have to allow sideloading. Enabling sideloading opens up more possibility for attack vectors, especially if it is chained with another bug in Chrome or Firefox to let a web page silently install an app somehow. The way they work is they insert themselves as a new app install handler (Android
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Tier 1 -- default tier, all apps are curated, scanned by Google's AI for potential mischief, and for an app developer to have an app in Tier 1, they must agree to more stringent requirements, and are put on notice that it doesn't take much for them to have their app chucked from the tier. This is what Amazon does with their Android app store.
Isn't ES File Explorer still on the Amazon App Store? That's shady AF
Two-Thirds of ALL Android Apps are total BS (Score:2)
and that's being extremely generous
Lets go make some $$$$ (Score:2)
that they found 250 to test in the first place.. (Score:2)
..ought to clue anyone in that the vast majority of them are absolutely bogus. there's probably less than a couple dozen legitimate developers of consumer 'antivirus' products, total, globally, with the resources to even have half a chance at developing and maintaining an 'anti malware' app for android that actually works.
Viruses not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Viruses not the problem (Score:2)
Most apps - including the useful ones - are malware. Android appears to have been designed with the goal of making it easy to data rape users.
What is an Android virus? (Score:2)
All the apps have very explicit permissions. Google blocks malware at the source at the Play Store when it is identified. I've never felt at all compelled to run antivirus on Android. What is the value?
A bit harsh (Score:3)
The top 25 programs tested scored a hundred per cent detection rate and there were more below that in the high nineties, so the negative judgement is bit harsh. Moreover the ones that passed are all the usual suspects like Kaspersky, Avira, Avast etc which anyone with any knowledge would be more likely to buy, rather than some weird unknown brand.
The moral is to stick with the established brands that you know.
Itâ(TM)s all bs (Score:1)
Fraud (Score:1)
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After they have sold all the ice from a frozen hell.
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Do we really want the government dictating more online shit? How'd that work out for Net neutrality? How'd that work out for healthcare? How'd it work out for the partisan shit show that we've had for the last couple decades?
Miserable state of AV engines (Score:1)
A colleague of mine has a "hobby" of fuzzing various antivirus engines with his custom tools designed mostly to test our own products. The amount of crashes, busyloops and other nasty failures he's able to trigger simply by almost blind fuzzing is amazing. He does tell of his findings to the AV engine vendors, but they tend to become mysteriously unresponsive after couple dozen crash reports in a week, or still finding crashes after several iterations of fixes...
On this basis it's not hard to think that a h
How to avoid neednig AV products on Android (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually 90% are garbage (Score:2)