The stylish Android antivirus apps in 2022

There is a wide range of choices available to suit both your budget and your asked protection position. In addition to excellent malware discovery and forestallment, the stylish Android antivirus apps also include sequestration andante-theft features. While the utmost of these apps has a free service league that allows you to test them out before paying for a periodic subscription, some are entirely free.

Some of the stylish Android antivirus apps on this list will coagulate your connections and other important data, track your phone or tablet via GPS, take a picture of a phone pincher using your device’s camera and indeed allow you to use your Wear zilches smartwatch to find your phone. We’ve rounded up the stylish immolations from the biggest names in the mobile antivirus business – Avast, Bitdefender, Lookout, McAfee, Norton, and indeed Google itself – and rated their Android apps grounded on setup, interface, usability, redundant features, and of course, their capability to cover your bias from the rearmost cyber pitfalls.

To determine the position of protection offered by each app, we used data from the independent German testing lab AV-Test which rates most major security apps on their capability to descry malware and other pitfalls. We also used the Geekbench 5 app to measure the impact each of these apps has on overall Android performance.

What are the stylish Android antivirus apps?

Grounded on our tests, the stylish Android antivirus app moment is Bitdefender Mobile Security ($ 15 per time) which offers nearly indefectible malware protection and a wide range of features.

While Norton Mobile Security (starting at$ 15 per time) has indeed better protection, Norton has discontinued the excellent free league of Norton Mobile Security and anti-theft features, so you’ll need to pay commodity to cover your devices. Both Avast Mobile Security and McAfee Mobile Security offer a lot of features for free and do fairly well in malware-discovery tests. still, Avast ‘Santi-theft and call-blocking tools did not work well and the free performances of both apps show a lot of advertisements.

Lookout Security & Antivirus was one of the first mobile antivirus apps and has a compelling identity protection option. Still, however, there’s little third-party lab testing data on the effectiveness of Lookout’s antivirus, so we do not really know exactly how well it covers against malware. Google Play cover on the other hand is installed on every Android phone with Google Play. Unfortunately, it’s not stylish at guarding against malware but it has clearly bettered over the times.

For malware protection on other platforms, be sure to visit our runners on the stylish antivirus software and the stylish Mac antivirus.

Editor’s note Future, the parent company of Tom’s Guide, has chosen to stop doing business with Russian companies, including Kaspersky. We remain married to helping our compendiums to source and find stylish products and will offer multiple druthers in the orders affected.

Why you should use an Android antivirus app

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In order to keep your Android smartphone or tablet safe, you should keep its software streamlined to the rearmost interpretation. This is because each new interpretation of Android is more secure than its precursor, and each yearly Android security update fixes recently set up excrescencies.

Still, unless you have a Google Pixel or Android phone, you do not get these updates and upgrades right down. utmost device makers need redundant time to make sure that changes to Android wo not break their bias or software.

The time between updates can be a couple of weeks though it can also take months. To make matters worse, some Android phones stop getting Android zilches upgrades after two times and many no way admit yearly security patches at all.

This is where stylish Android antivirus apps come by. They stop attacks that try to get around Android’s erected- defenses, especially those that Google has renovated but your device does not yet (or no way will) have. They also stop new attacks that Google Play cover wo not catch, indeed on Pixel bias. How to choose the stylish Android antivirus app for you

Android antivirus apps generally come in three pricing schemes completely free, completely paid, and freemium.

Freemium apps let you choose between getting a limited set of features for free or elevation to the decoration interpretation which gives you access to all of their features, analogous to completely paid apps. Apps that offer a lot of features for free may also show you a lot of advertisements.

Some of the features included in the stylish Android antivirus apps might inclement-theft mechanisms, an “counsel” to help you examine and choose apps, a Wi-Fi network security scanner, or an app cinch that requires a passcode to open specific apps.

Both paid apps and decoration categories generally bring between$ 15 and$ 30 per time. still, some app makers try to limit the number of biases you can install their decoration/ paid performances on. Meanwhile, other methods on a super-premium league give you unlimited access to a VPN or identity protection service, frequently at enough good price. Still, however, the most important factor when deciding on which Android antivirus app to use is malware protection.

Norton and Bitdefender lead in this area while Kaspersky is not far before. Avast is good but not great while the erected- Google Play cover still needs some work. We’re not sure about both Lookout and 360 Security since neither company has submitted their apps to recent lab tests.

How we tested the stylish Android antivirus apps

In order to gauge the security protection offered by each of the stylish Android antivirus apps, we used the rearmost semimonthly test results from the independent German lab AV-TEST (opens in new tab) which measures how well Android security apps can descry zero-day malware and other pitfalls.

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As some apps had scores that were inconsistent from one test to the coming, we also looked back at the former two times resultant the same time, we also used some results from the Austrian lab AV-Comparatives (opens in new tab) that tests nearly every Android antivirus app on the Play Store once a time including those that do not work together with testing labs. still, these tests are less detailed.

To measure the impact antivirus apps, have on an Android smartphone’s overall performance, we used the benchmarking app Geekbench 5 on a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 running Android 12. For each app, we ran Geekbench without an antivirus app first to establish a birth before running it with one of the review apps installed as well as during each app’s full checkup.

From then, we also took a near look at the number and utility of each app’s features and estimated which features are reserved for paid druggies. also, we assessed each app’s stoner interface and installation process.