Free light running android AV app

[fhills]

Anyone recommend one?

Have used various.

Am currently using malwarebytes but I have the impression that it is getting increasingly resource hungry.

It never seems to find anything, but then none ever do, despite my, ahem, somewhat liberal browsing.

Am not even sure if you need the things on Android.

[dave r]

I had an android tablet which got heavily infected with malware, my current phone runs behind the No Root Firewall and Dr Web Light anti virus.

[fuaran]

Unless you are installing dodgy apps from dubious sources, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Should be pretty safe if only get apps from Google Play. Just check what permissions any apps require, and read a few of the reviews.

[dave r]

Unless you are installing dodgy apps from dubious sources, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Should be pretty safe if only get apps from Google Play. Just check what permissions any apps require, and read a few of the reviews.

I only ever use the play store for stuff and I'm not in the habit of visiting dodgy web sites.

[Morat]

What infected your tablet? I've yet to come acrross an Android infection in the wild. I don't doubt you, just curious!

[dave r]

What infected your tablet? I've yet to come across an Android infection in the wild. I don't doubt you, just curious!

I never worked out what it was, shortly after it started the tablet got knocked off a work surface onto a concrete floor and never worked again. Whilst it was happening I would often start the tablet up and find it downloading random Apps then running them, the tablet would be unusable till I had stopped the downloads and uninstalled the apps. When I had the tablet running as it should so I could use it I was plagued by full screen ads for various things.

[fhills]

Unless you are installing dodgy apps from dubious sources, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Should be pretty safe if only get apps from Google Play. Just check what permissions any apps require, and read a few of the reviews.

Interesting fuaran. So you reckon i could, despite sometimes liberal browsing, just uninstall the AV?

I only ever install apps from playstore.

My chrome browser did once catch something that to my pretty untechy brain looked like some sort of ransomwhere. Whenever i clicked on the browser, even if i cleared the cache/-history, restarted the tab etc etc,  the screen was partly covered by a warning asking for money. I just went into the tabs android settings, returned the browser to its original factory settings, all my bookmarks etc were automatically available again from syncb/backup, i updated the browser again using latest updates, all well. The virus or whatever never reappeared.

[T42]

What infected your tablet? I've yet to come across an Android infection in the wild. I don't doubt you, just curious!

I never worked out what it was, shortly after it started the tablet got knocked off a work surface onto a concrete floor and never worked again. Whilst it was happening I would often start the tablet up and find it downloading random Apps then running them, the tablet would be unusable till I had stopped the downloads and uninstalled the apps. When I had the tablet running as it should so I could use it I was plagued by full screen ads for various things.

When I used the old Defy I once installed a Marketplace app that promised remote digital camera control. Once installed it started taking pictures and would not be stopped or uninstalled. In the end I had to do a factory reset, restore my contacts and start downloading the useful apps again. 

[mrcharly-YHT]

What infected your tablet? I've yet to come across an Android infection in the wild. I don't doubt you, just curious!

I never worked out what it was, shortly after it started the tablet got knocked off a work surface onto a concrete floor and never worked again. Whilst it was happening I would often start the tablet up and find it downloading random Apps then running them, the tablet would be unusable till I had stopped the downloads and uninstalled the apps. When I had the tablet running as it should so I could use it I was plagued by full screen ads for various things.

Unless you have disabled the security, most android installations default to blocking apps that have not been downloaded from the google play store.

[dave r]

What infected your tablet? I've yet to come across an Android infection in the wild. I don't doubt you, just curious!

I never worked out what it was, shortly after it started the tablet got knocked off a work surface onto a concrete floor and never worked again. Whilst it was happening I would often start the tablet up and find it downloading random Apps then running them, the tablet would be unusable till I had stopped the downloads and uninstalled the apps. When I had the tablet running as it should so I could use it I was plagued by full screen ads for various things.

Unless you have disabled the security, most android installations default to blocking apps that have not been downloaded from the google play store.

I always ran with the download from unknown sources disabled. I assumed that I'd picked up something malicious somewhere and that was the cause of the problem, a factory reset would stop it for a couple of weeks but then it would start again. Problem was that I'm only a user not a technician.