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Over the past ten years, the smart­phone has become the main tool in human hands. We con­stant­ly use it for every­day needs and busi­ness tasks, but at the same time we almost nev­er think about our own secu­ri­ty. And Inter­net scam­mers who want to enrich them­selves due to the inat­ten­tion of users are well aware of this. To pro­tect your­self from their tricks, it is enough to install a good antivirus and fol­low the basic rules of dig­i­tal hygiene.

Today, you can not do with­out a mobile antivirus, secu­ri­ty soft­ware man­u­fac­tur­ers assure, but they exag­ger­ate a lit­tle. If the user is care­ful about their pri­va­cy, does not click on sus­pi­cious links, and does not install pirat­ed appli­ca­tions, the chance of becom­ing a vic­tim is low. Secu­ri­ty soft­ware just insures against such sit­u­a­tions, which any per­son can get into even with extreme con­cen­tra­tion. That is why smart­phone soft­ware is not a manda­to­ry mea­sure, but an airbag.

What mobile antivirus can pro­tect against:

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• Phish­ing. A type of inter­net scam based on fake web­sites. The vic­tim receives a mes­sage about a pro­mo­tion, sale, or win­ning a con­test. By click­ing on the link, she gets to a fake web­site of an online store or bank, and when she tries to log into her account, she los­es her per­son­al data. Some emails seem very attrac­tive and believ­able, and fake sites are almost indis­tin­guish­able from the orig­i­nal, so it’s best to pro­tect your­self from anti-virus phish­ing.
• Extor­tion­ists. Mali­cious soft­ware that blocks the own­er’s access to the smart­phone and demands a ran­som. You can get infect­ed by installing unli­censed appli­ca­tions or by click­ing on a ban­ner on an unre­li­able site. The mali­cious pro­gram will work only after instal­la­tion, which can be pre­vent­ed by the antivirus in time.
• Spy virus­es. After instal­la­tion, the pro­gram begins to mon­i­tor per­son­al data or steal user pass­words. It may also col­lect infor­ma­tion about his inter­ests and online activ­i­ty in order to trans­fer or sell it. Antivirus pro­tects per­son­al data, but in most cas­es it will not even allow spy­ware to get on the device.
• Theft of mon­ey from the SIM card. Some virus­es can call from an infect­ed device or send paid SMS. For a user with­out an antivirus, this can result in the loss of all mon­ey from the SIM card.
• Adver­tis­ing soft­ware. Hid­den pro­gram for dis­play­ing ads that inter­fere with the use of a smart­phone. Often you can’t turn off ads on your own, but a high-qual­i­ty antivirus can han­dle it.

To pro­tect read­ers from Inter­net threats, the edi­tors of Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da have com­piled a rat­ing of the best antivirus­es for Android phones in 2022. The sam­ple is based on the most recent data from the inde­pen­dent AV-TEST sur­vey con­duct­ed in Novem­ber 2021^one. A detailed result for a spe­cif­ic prod­uct can be viewed by click­ing on the name of a spe­cif­ic prod­uct. In addi­tion, data from the AV-TEST con­duct­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2021 were tak­en into account.².

Editor’s Choice

Dr.Web Security Space

Dr.Web Secu­ri­ty Space anti-virus pro­gram with a large updat­ed data­base reli­ably pro­tects Android devices (smart­phones, tablets, smart TVs and game con­soles). Cus­tom URL fil­ter­ing rec­og­nizes mali­cious sources, and when you try to open them, a block page appears.

In Dr.Web, you can set up white or black lists of sites, access to which is allowed or blocked regard­less of oth­er set­tings (the list is emp­ty by default).

The mobile and desk­top ver­sions of Dr.Web Secu­ri­ty Space fea­ture a prac­ti­cal spam fil­ter: the soft­ware fil­ters out unwant­ed incom­ing phone calls, SMS, and adver­tis­ing mail­ings. It is pos­si­ble to pur­chase both an annu­al license and a sub­scrip­tion. There is a free demo peri­od of 14 days.

Edi­tor’s Choice

Dr.Web Secu­ri­ty Space

Pro­tect Android devices from mal­ware and dan­ger­ous web con­tent

Effi­cient anti-virus pro­gram with updat­ed data­base and prac­ti­cal spam fil­ter

BuyOther prod­ucts

Main characteristics

Lan­guages	Russ­ian, Eng­lish, Ger­man, French, Span­ish, Kaza­kh, Chi­nese, Japan­ese, Ital­ian, Por­tuguese, Pol­ish, Ukrain­ian, Turk­ish, Ara­bic, Viet­namese, Far­si
Android ver­sion	4.4 and above
Dis­tri­b­u­tion Size	37 MB

Pros and cons

There are all the impor­tant fea­tures, reli­able virus pro­tec­tion, cus­tom fil­ter­ing of spam mail­ings, sus­pi­cious calls and SMS, there is a free demo peri­od of 14 days

Not the most con­ve­nient set­tings sys­tem, crash­es or auto­mat­ic launch of some func­tions may occur

Top 10 Best Antivirus for Android Phones in 2022 According to KP

1. Kaspersky Internet Security for Android

This Russ­ian antivirus is well known not only to for­eign users, but also to inde­pen­dent West­ern experts. They reg­u­lar­ly test the pro­gram for secu­ri­ty fea­tures, usabil­i­ty, and per­for­mance. By all cri­te­ria, Kasper­sky Inter­net Secu­ri­ty receives high marks^eight.

Antivirus pro­tects your smart­phone in real time, stops track­ing attempts and warns you about fake phish­ing sites. Anti-theft and call fil­ter work as stan­dard, but there is no VPN or parental con­trol in the pro­gram. These func­tions are inte­grat­ed into oth­er Kasper­sky Lab prod­ucts, so if nec­es­sary, the user will have to pur­chase them sep­a­rate­ly.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Lan­guage	Russ­ian
Oper­at­ing sys­tem	Android
Device type	smart­phone, tablet
Android ver­sion	5.0 and above
The size	device depen­dent

Pros and cons

One of the best antivirus for Android in terms of net­work pro­tec­tion, thor­ough real-time threat mon­i­tor­ing, low sys­tem load

No parental con­trols and VPNs found in more afford­able antivirus­es

2. Avast Mobile Security Premium

One of the best antivirus for Android. Its sig­na­ture data­base con­tains infor­ma­tion on 8 mil­lion mal­ware and is updat­ed dai­ly thanks to users and ana­lysts. Avast pro­tects against the main threats: Tro­jans, adware, and ran­somware that block access to your device.

As a paid sub­scriber, you can use VPN, auto­mat­ic dai­ly scans, and the pro­tec­tion of impor­tant pro­grams that use per­son­al data or con­duct finan­cial trans­ac­tions.

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In addi­tion, only in the Pre­mi­um ver­sion can you dis­able ads, which in the free Avast Mobile Secu­ri­ty take up almost the entire bot­tom of the screen.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

3. Bitdefender Mobile Security for Android

With this pro­gram, you can com­plete­ly for­get about mal­ware on your smart­phone. Bit­de­fend­er prod­ucts receive top marks in inde­pen­dent research and are reg­u­lar­ly ranked among the top antivirus prod­ucts for com­put­ers and phones.

Accord­ing to one of the lat­est tests^four, Bit­de­fend­er Mobile Secu­ri­ty was able to reflect 100% of threats in real time and blocked 100% of the lat­est virus­es at that time. In addi­tion, the study showed that the antivirus does not slow down the sys­tem, does not gen­er­ate a lot of traf­fic and saves ener­gy.

The appli­ca­tion does not false­ly trig­ger, so it will only restrict access to dan­ger­ous games and pro­grams. The ser­vice pack­age has all the impor­tant fea­tures, except for block­ing unwant­ed calls and data back­up, and the traf­fic for the VPN is lim­it­ed to 200 MB per day.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

Antivirus for Win­dows

Any activ­i­ty on the Inter­net is poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous, even if it is order­ing food or read­ing a let­ter.

4. McAfee Security: VPN protection and antivirus

One of the most func­tion­al antivirus tools for Android. For mobile antivirus, there are only 7–9 main options besides virus pro­tec­tion, and almost every ser­vice pack­age lacks some­thing from this list. How­ev­er, McAfee has every­thing you need, with the excep­tion of call block­ing.

The pro­gram includes a full-fledged high-qual­i­ty VPN for online pro­tec­tion, the abil­i­ty to safe­ly browse sites and screen out sus­pi­cious resources, an anti-theft func­tion with a full range of remote con­trol, and appli­ca­tion code pro­tec­tion. To check the secu­ri­ty of a home or unfa­mil­iar net­work, McAfee Secu­ri­ty uses a Wi-Fi hotspot scan­ner.

The antivirus also warns the own­er if some­one has stolen and used his phone num­ber or email address on the Inter­net. The dis­ad­van­tages of the prod­uct include the price, which exceeds the cost of oth­er paid sub­scrip­tions by 3–9 times.

Google Play

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Main characteristics

Pros and cons

5 Norton 360 Mobile Security

Antivirus with 100% pro­tec­tion⁶ and the com­plete absence of false pos­i­tives. The pro­gram copes with the main task per­fect­ly well — it detects all new threats, blocks tran­si­tions to fake sites and does not affect the speed of the smart­phone. Among the use­ful fea­tures is the pri­va­cy advi­sor — it warns the user in advance about appli­ca­tions from Google Play that can secret­ly use his per­son­al data.

The antivirus also noti­fies you of sus­pi­cious and dan­ger­ous Wi-FI net­works that can steal per­son­al infor­ma­tion or infect your device with virus­es. In terms of pri­va­cy pro­tec­tion, Nor­ton 360: Mobile Secu­ri­ty can be con­sid­ered one of the best solu­tions. How­ev­er, it does not have a free tri­al peri­od, and the VPN is installed sep­a­rate­ly and is not avail­able in some coun­tries.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

6. Avira Security Antivirus & VPN

The opti­mal solu­tion for fans of mobile gam­ing. The pro­gram opti­mizes the resources of the phone and improves its per­for­mance, and also allows you to get rid of tem­po­rary and resid­ual files. Thanks to this, the device does not slow down, heats up less dur­ing a long game, and the stor­age is not lit­tered with use­less data. The pro­gram is not demand­ing — it almost does not affect the bat­tery and does not load the sys­tem dur­ing back­ground threat mon­i­tor­ing.

If nec­es­sary, Avi­ra Secu­ri­ty Antivirus can scan the net­work and give the own­er infor­ma­tion about its secu­ri­ty and con­nect­ed devices. In addi­tion, the antivirus pro­tects the own­er from sur­veil­lance through the micro­phone and cam­era. How­ev­er, unlim­it­ed VPN and pass­word man­ag­er are only avail­able in a paid sub­scrip­tion, and even then not on all plans.

In the free ver­sion, the user can get acquaint­ed with some fea­tures, eval­u­ate the inter­face and set­tings, try out free 100 MB VPN per day and decide whether he needs to pay for this prod­uct.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

Top 50 Smart­phones

It does­n’t mat­ter if Android or iOS — almost every man­u­fac­tur­er has advanced smart­phones

7. AVG AntiVirus Pro for Android

An absolute clone of Avast in terms of inter­face. If the user once had one of these antivirus­es, it will not be dif­fi­cult to deal with the sec­ond. AVG’s desk­top and mobile appli­ca­tions reg­u­lar­ly top posi­tions in inde­pen­dent research rat­ings and are dis­tin­guished by a high lev­el of pro­tec­tion.⁹.

The set of func­tions is stan­dard for most paid antivirus­es, but the “anti-theft” is also able to take an auto­mat­ic snap­shot when replac­ing SIM-cards in the phone. AVG is sim­i­lar to Avast in the absence of a fire­wall, so the antivirus can­not fil­ter infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted over the net­work.

Google Play

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Main characteristics

Pros and cons

8Panda Mobile Security

Speed ​​and wide func­tion­al­i­ty are the main advan­tages of this antivirus. It can block calls, opti­mize sys­tem per­for­mance and pro­long bat­tery life, and if the device is stolen, it allows you to remote­ly erase all con­fi­den­tial files, cap­ture the face of an intrud­er, and even turn on an anti-theft alarm. Even if the bat­tery runs out com­plete­ly, the own­er of the stolen smart­phone will be able to track its loca­tion.

Pan­da Mobile Secu­ri­ty has sev­er­al tools in its arse­nal for smart­watch users. For exam­ple, the own­er of the gad­get will receive a warn­ing if the watch and the smart­phone are too far apart. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in terms of pro­tec­tive prop­er­ties, the pro­gram is infe­ri­or to advanced antivirus­es.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

9. Malwarebytes for Android

An antivirus that takes up lit­tle stor­age space and does not load the sys­tem. The main pro­tec­tive fea­tures of Mal­ware­bytes for Android are block­ing ads and adware, mon­i­tor­ing secu­ri­ty when vis­it­ing web pages, and proac­tive­ly dis­arm­ing ran­somware.

At the same time, the antivirus has a long and not the most thor­ough scan, there is no Wi-Fi check, call block­ing and VPN. This prod­uct is suit­able for those who want to get rid of ads and pro­tect them­selves from the threat of mali­cious sites with­out unnec­es­sary load on their smart­phone.

Google Play

Main characteristics

Pros and cons

10. ESET NOD32 Mobile Security

ESET NOD32 — machine learn­ing-based secu­ri­ty soft­ware rec­og­nizes and elim­i­nates 100% of mod­ern virus­es and repels 99.9% of threats³ in real time. It also has a home net­work check fea­ture that ana­lyzes the secu­ri­ty lev­el and iden­ti­fies pos­si­ble vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

If the phone is lost or stolen, the own­er will be able to man­age it through a per­son­al account on the ESET web­site. This fea­ture allows you to remote­ly erase sen­si­tive data, lock your device, locate it for quick return, and get a pic­ture from your cam­era.

A spe­cial option will help you rec­og­nize the face of the kid­nap­per or con­sid­er the sur­round­ings. The rest of the fea­tures are stan­dard: pass­word pro­tec­tion for appli­ca­tions, auto­mat­ic sched­uled scan­ning and anti-phish­ing to block fake sites.

Google Play

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Main characteristics

Pros and cons

How to choose an antivirus for your Android phone

Choos­ing a mobile antivirus for your require­ments is not so dif­fi­cult. But first of all, you need to fig­ure out whether it is worth pay­ing for the soft­ware at all.

Paid or free — which antivirus for Android is better

Even the best free antivirus for Android is a half-mea­sure in some ways. Today, Inter­net fraud has become the main threat for smart­phone users, and only pro­grams with a devel­oped and wide range of fea­tures pro­tect against them.

And so the most obvi­ous advan­tage of the Pre­mi­um ver­sions is func­tion­al­i­ty. Some free antivirus­es can only per­form forced scans and detect threats after the fact. They have a cou­ple more use­ful fea­tures, but phish­ing pro­tec­tion, ad block­ing, and VPNs are most­ly found only in the advanced ver­sions.

The sec­ond argu­ment in favor of paid sub­scrip­tions is no ads. Share­ware prod­ucts still need to be mon­e­tized, so they reg­u­lar­ly offer to buy a paid pack­age, show ads, and may even col­lect per­son­al user data. When choos­ing a free antivirus, you need to care­ful­ly study the pri­va­cy pol­i­cy and be pre­pared for the con­stant impo­si­tion of goods and ser­vices.

What criteria to choose an antivirus

Any antivirus can be eval­u­at­ed by three para­me­ters: pro­tec­tion effec­tive­ness, Ease of use and per­for­mance. The last cri­te­ri­on includes not only the speed of the pro­gram, but also its impact on the sys­tem and ener­gy con­sump­tion. Approx­i­mate­ly the same eval­u­a­tion para­me­ters are used by rep­utable research lab­o­ra­to­ries, such as AV-TEST^tenAV Com­par­a­tives^eleven and MRG Effi­tas¹².

1. So, for starters, you should cut off all options with inap­pro­pri­ate per­for­mance. It’s bet­ter to imme­di­ate­ly aban­don the antivirus that slows down the sys­tem, makes the phone warm, or makes surf­ing the Inter­net unpleas­ant. These short­com­ings will become too high a price for pro­tec­tion, which may nev­er come in handy with care­ful use of a smart­phone.
2. Sec­ond­ly, it is impor­tant to know about as antivirus pro­tec­tion. To do this, just go to the spe­cial­ized sites and see the results of the lat­est research. There you can find at least five antivirus­es with 100% pro­tec­tion against threats, and then it remains to choose the appro­pri­ate one accord­ing to the last cri­te­ri­on.
3. Con­ve­nience use — the last cri­te­ri­on is the third in the queue, but the first in impor­tance. Using an incon­ve­nient, over­ly com­pli­cat­ed, or visu­al­ly repul­sive pro­gram every day is not a good prospect, espe­cial­ly if it cost the user mon­ey. To accu­rate­ly choose a good antivirus for a smart­phone on Android, you can first eval­u­ate its free ver­sion. Even bet­ter, use the tri­al peri­od and use the full range of ser­vices for a while.