14 DAY TRIAL // A new research conducted by antivirus test organization AV-TEST reveals the top security apps for Android, which are becoming more or less a must-have given the growing number of threats.
First and foremost, AV-TEST evaluated the protection and usability of 20 different antivirus apps, including Google’s very own Play Protect that’s bundled into the Google Play Store.
Even though Google Play Protect isn’t an antivirus app per se, it was included in the research as the basic security level, so it scored no points in terms of protection. Instead, it received six out of six points for usability.
When it comes to the apps that scored the best in this research, there are several of them. Alibaba Mobile Security, Avast Mobile Security, AVG Antivirus Free, Bitdefender Mobile Security, G Data Internet Security, Kaspersky Lab Internet Security, McAfee Mobile Security, and several others have all received the maximum of six points in both protection and usability tests.
Lowest protection score
Needless to say, installing one of these apps should provide you with the most advanced protection on Android right now. You can check out the graph in the article to see all apps and their scores.
As for the methodology, AV-TEST says it tested the most recent versions of the antivirus apps for Android available in March.
“They were allowed to update themselves at any time and query their in-the-cloud services. We focused on malware detection and usability, including performance and false positives. Products had to demonstrate their capabilities using all components and protection layers,” the organization explains.
The industry average in terms of detection of the latest Android malware in real-time is 97.5%, while in the case of malware discovered in the last 4 weeks it is 97.1%. The lowest protection score in this research was obtained by Hi Security, which received only 3.5 points after detecting only 95.4% and 96.2% of the malware samples, respectively.