anti virus for android

john mayo 10

Purchased a samsung tab 3 recently. Its is necessary to install antivirus and which one is best.?

Stormington

No.

I've ran through a few droids (as has the missus) and I've never had the need for anti-virus apps/software. I did try one when I bought my first pricey phone but all it did was slow the phone down.

The main thing is don't download apps unless they're from the Play store or a source you trust like Amazon.

Tbh, I am less worried about viruses than I am about apps looking for too much info when installing an app: a flashlight app does not need my contacts, messages, photos, video, email and google account info for example. But that is just me: maybe I am being paranoid...

GavinusMaximus

john mayo 10 wrote: »

Purchased a samsung tab 3 recently. Its is necessary to install antivirus and which one is best.?

Can't recommend CleanMaster enough.
My husband installed it for me and it really is simple.
It gives you notifications to clean useless junk; and there is also helpful notifications/apps on the notification bar, i.e. flashlight.
It also makes it easy to move apps to SD card storage so you'll have more space on the phone itself.
Best of all it's free.

droidman123

john mayo 10 wrote: »

Purchased a samsung tab 3 recently. Its is necessary to install antivirus and which one is best.?

You dont need antivirus,if anything they can be detrimental.just stick to the playstore for games,apps,movies etc. If you sideload any apks it will be at your own risk

GarIT

I've seen a couple of phones destroyed by malware and that was a 3 years ago now, it has only gotten worse since. This can only really happen if you install apps from outside of the play store though. So if you don't download any apps that aren't on the play store or dont have at least 1k downloads you should be fine. If you are going to download apps from other sources you should get it.

GavinusMaximus

droidman123 wrote: »

You dont need antivirus,if anything they can be detrimental.just stick to the playstore for games,apps,movies etc. If you sideload any apks it will be at your own risk

You can get clean master from the play store, so you can rest assured that it is legit.

I agree with not loading anything outside PS unless you a bit of a tech buff.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

droidman123

GavinusMaximus wrote: »

You can get clean master from the play store, so you can rest assured that it is legit.

I agree with not loading anything outside PS unless you a bit of a tech buff.

yes there are tons of those apps legit in the playstore, but most of the time they do more harm than good. the android os has its own way of dealing with junk files and cleaning ram etc, a lot of those apps such as cleanmaster interfere with the natural android process and hence can be more detrimental than helpful

Kavrocks

Clean Master looks like a nice app for people who aren't very technical. Disclaimer: I've never tried it and I don't plan to. I would be wary of it though, its slightly misleading and some of what its doing is a fad.

From the Clean Master description

► JUNK FILE CLEANING
Delete cache and residual files to reclaim storage, boost speed and improve the performance of your device and SD card.

Deleting cache files can slow down your phone as apps have to load the data in again either by downloading it or loading it from slow memory (eg. SD card).

► MEMORY BOOST
Boost your games and apps, free up memory (RAM), speed up your device and save more battery. Our 1 Tap Boost and Game Boost features make it easy to optimize directly from your homescreen.

Android only recovers RAM by closing apps when it needs to. Apps can only use so much RAM, removing other apps from RAM isn't necessarily going to increase the RAM available to those apps.

Personally I think better replacements for this are SD Maid and Greenify. However, I would not recommend using them unless you know what you are doing.

Skatedude

If you use your phone for any banking etc, then install anti virus. if not. then dont bother.

I use avast on my desktop, and a nice feature is that it includes anti virus for android automaticly. So i install it on my desktop and it automaticly installed onto my tablet and phone since i use the same google account.

But it is not free. worth it if you have a few devices, not so much if it's just for your phone.

mass_debater

Skatedude wrote: »

If you use your phone for any banking etc, then install anti virus. if not. then dont bother.

I use avast on my desktop, and a nice feature is that it includes anti virus for android automaticly. So i install it on my desktop and it automaticly installed onto my tablet and phone since i use the same google account.

But it is not free. worth it if you have a few devices, not so much if it's just for your phone.

I'm not sure what magic you're expecting, AV software works the exact same way as Google’s own software verification, if you attempt to install an app from any source while app verification is turned on your device will send information identifying the app to Google
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2812853?hl=en

You are installing an app to do the same thing as is already built in, AV software doesn't do anything special

Squeeonline

GavinusMaximus wrote: »

Can't recommend CleanMaster enough.
My husband installed it for me and it really is simple.
It gives you notifications to clean useless junk; and there is also helpful notifications/apps on the notification bar, i.e. flashlight.
It also makes it easy to move apps to SD card storage so you'll have more space on the phone itself.
Best of all it's free.

If it's free, you are the product not the customer.

What permissions does it require? What data is it gathering from you and your device?


Nothing is for nothing in this world.

john mayo 10

Sorry for not posting sooner as i was away. Tha ks for all the replies. Downloaded most apps through playstore so happy enough with them. I downloaded an app called mobdro to stream football matches. I didnt get it through playstore. App works fine its just i am worried about getti g a virus on the tablet.