Almost All Free Anti Malware Programs are useless?

Juniper points out that it’s not too difficult to make an anonymous developer’s account and pay $25 to post an app. But since Google has no advance screening process, and no one at Google checks the app to see if it’s legitimate, any Android user can then browse the Android Market, and download anything the developer puts there, including malware.

With malware on the rise in the Droid environment, many people are scrambling to find anti-malware programs to protect their phones. If you’re aiming to add free anti-malware to your phone, you could be wasting your time, while leaving yourself open to attack. At least that’s what a recent report by the Internet security company AV-Test.org claims.

In the report it says that all of the freeware it tested failed to provide an acceptable level of protection, with the best freeware detecting only about 32% of the malware introduced. That was Zoner AntiVirus Free, during a manual scan. And Zoner did stop 80% of the test malware on installation. But of the other free apps tested, the best one detected only 6% on a manual scan, and 10% on installation. While three of the freebie apps detected nothing at all.

To compare and contrast the functions, AV-Test.org also provided testing on F-Secure Mobile Security and Kaspersky Mobile Security, both paid anti-malware products. Kaspersky and F-Secure both recognized greater than 50% of threats analyzed when doing a manual scan, and both stopped 100% of threats on installation. That was considerably better than any of the free products examined, though still weak in comparison to the performance of their desktop counterparts.

Here is a list of the free anti-malware tested and summary of results:

• Antivirus Free – detected 0% on manual scan, 0% on installation


• BluePoint Antivirus Free – detected 1% on manual scan, 10% on installation


• GuardX Antivirus – detected 0% on manual scan, 0% on installation


• Kinetoo Malware Scan – detected 6% on manual scan, 10% on installation


• LabMSF Antivirus beta – detected 0% on manual scan, 0% on installation


• Privateer Lite – detected 0% on manual scan, 10% on installation


• Zoner AntiVirus Free – detected 32% on manual scan, 80% on installation

Needless to say, for most Android users these results will be an eye opener. How many users have downloaded free Android anti-malware applications thinking their phones were fully protected? As you can see by these results, that is anything but the truth. Even paid anti-malware programs need a lot of improving in order to meet, what should be, minimum expectations. So Android users beware, you get nothing for free.

The AV-Test.org report can be found in its entirety here: http://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf/avtest_2011-11_free_android_virus_scanner_english.pdf

Source : Almost All Free Anti Malware Programs are useless?