McAfee for Tablets - Worth it for a Fiver?

Lum

Not completely dung. There are bad apps for Android, not because it's open source but because there is no vetting process for Android apps like there is for Apple. Google instead remove bad apps reactively once they find out.

You are right about McAfee and Norton though

tonyh66

avast for android is FREE...................end of conversation

forgot to add, when I bought my android tablet from said establishment, they tried to flog me antivirus, I laughed so they gave it to me for nowt, I duly took it home and binned it.

mttylad

So the answer is no.

The number of people that fal for mcafee/nortons and buy it when buying their new pc is amazing, if only they did a little research first.

Lum

Norton, much as it pains me to admit it, does actually do very well at detection rates in it's most recent versions.

Unfortunately that does come with a heavy performance penalty. If you want a paid AV product, go with NOD32.

(This is about Windows PCs. I'm not yet convinced that any of the Android AVs actually do much of any use at all)

Johnmcl7

Lum wrote: »

Not completely dung. There are bad apps for Android, not because it's open source but because there is no vetting process for Android apps like there is for Apple. Google instead remove bad apps reactively once they find out.

You are right about McAfee and Norton though

That isn't the case anymore - Google rolled out a system called 'Bouncer' this year which actively scans applications on the store for malware, they don't just react when bad applications are reported.

John

Lum

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

That isn't the case anymore - Google rolled out a system called 'Bouncer' this year which actively scans applications on the store for malware, they don't just react when bad applications are reported.

Researchers hide malware from Google Bouncer.

mr_fishbulb

I think it's best to assume that neither Apple or Google are perfect at stopping malicious apps from getting onto their stores.

In addition I don't agree that app stores are the only attack vector for smart phones. The apps they run can have vulnerabilities which can be exploited. Take the iPhone jailbreaking for example - one of the methods was to exploit a pdf vulnerability on the device - http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/01/hackers_release_browser_based_jailbreak_for_iphone_4.html

Links to malicious code can be spread through email and sms too.

I agree that Android is less secure, but not because it's open source. Android is very difficult to update due to all the different devices out there. When google updates android, each phone vendor must make a custom build for each device. And then mobile operators create their own build and push it out. This takes a long time, and it's not even guaranteed that your phone will be popular enough to get an update. Apple on the other hand own the operating system, and the devices. They can update iOS and make it available instantly to every device.

Malicious code for smart phones is on the up, so my advice would be to go for AV. But, like with desktops, you don't need to pay for it to protect yourself. Avast for Android is free and came top of comparison tests in March - http://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf/avtest_2012-02_android_anti-malware_report_english.pdf

Johnmcl7

Lum wrote: »

Researchers hide malware from Google Bouncer.

That's not the point - you said Google only react to malware but they currently proactively try to remove it, no anti-malware system is 100% perfect.

John

Lum

Actually I said "once they find out", I didn't specify by what method they find out. But in any case this is an argument about semantics now when I was just trying to keep things simple and draw a comparison to Apple's manual approval process.