JUNE 2022 PCWorld 69- AVIR A S ECUR IT Y
FOR ANDROID
Price: Free from fave.co/3MnUNhz
Our top pick is Avira for a few reasons. First,
it gets top marks from both AV-Test (fave.
co/3whnbMG) and A-V Comparatives
(fave.co/3MzlrE0). From the former it
earned 99.9 percent on both the real-time
attacks and widespread malware tests in
March 2022. Over at A-V Comparatives
Avira got 100 percent detection using
nearly 3,700 samples in the 2021 Mobile
Security Review.
keep your device secure, and some of them
are even free. And by free we mean really
free. Not 30-day-trial free, but actually free for
as long as you have it on your device. Some
may have more restricted features (that is
often the trade-off with free), but if you want
to keep your device more secure without
paying for a subscription you don’t otherwise
need, these are the apps we recommend.
For more smartphone fortification, check
out our roundup of the best free VPNs for
Android (fave.co/37RIxa7)—a great way to
protect your privacy and guard your data
when using public Wi-Fi.Avira also has
more features.
Beyond the virus
scanner, it has 100MB
of VPN usage per
day, some storage-
optimizing features,
identity protection,
and a permissions
manager. It’s a nice
set, along with
top-notch protection,
as of this writing.- BITDEFENDER ANTIVIRUS
FOR ANDROID
Price: Free from fave.co/3lhDaE9
If you want something much simpler that
has equally good protection rankings, look
no further than Bitdefender. The Romania-
based company actually has two apps in
the Play Store. The free one is Bitdefender
Antivirus, not Bitdefender Mobile Security.
The free version does exactly what it says:
scans your phone
when you ask it to.
There’s also some
minimal automated
scanning from
Auto-pilot when you
download a new
app—a potential
attack vector for
Android phones.