Why you should uninstall antivirus software on Android devices

Android malware is a potential threat. If any of the dangerous variants find their way onto your smartphone, they can cause major damage. Malware can steal personal information, show you a barrage of annoying ads, and eat up your smartphone's resources.

The most common way to prevent Android malware is to use an antivirus app. But are antivirus apps really necessary? Do they protect your Android device from malware? The answer will be in the following article of Quantrimang.com.

How Most Android Antivirus Apps Work

To know whether you need an antivirus application, it is important to understand how most antivirus applications work. Surprisingly, it is not as complicated as you might think.

In a 2019 report by AV Comparatives, the security research firm took a detailed look at some of the most popular Android antivirus apps. The conclusion was the same as many security experts had suspected — a large number of popular Android antivirus apps do absolutely nothing to scan apps for malicious behavior.

Most antivirus apps simply use a whitelist to compare against the apps you have installed on your smartphone. Any app that is not from a whitelisted vendor will be flagged as potentially malicious.

Other tools use blacklists. They scan your phone to see if you have any apps on this list installed. If any are found, they are flagged for uninstallation.

While this may sound useful, from a practical standpoint it offers little to no protection. The lists that most so-called antivirus apps use to scan your smartphone are often not good enough. Since new malicious apps are constantly popping up, a pre-existing list of malicious apps is not an effective solution.

According to a Statista report from March 2020, around 482,579 Android malware samples were released to the Internet every month. That's an average of 16,000 malware per day - a number that's too unrealistic to keep track of.

This is why even when these antivirus vendors update their lists, they are still not comprehensive enough. According to statistics, there could be thousands of malicious apps that are not detected at any given time.

These apps can wreak havoc on your phone without your antivirus knowing. Ultimately, they give you a false sense of security, causing you to lose your guard.

Antivirus apps can harm your Android smartphone

If you have an antivirus app installed on your Android smartphone , a false sense of security is probably the least of your worries. Most antivirus apps will just sit on your phone, doing nothing but eating up your phone's resources and negatively impacting your device's performance in a variety of ways.

Due to the use of fancy animations, running in the background, and deploying real-time components, antivirus apps can drain your device's battery. Of course, because they are constantly running, they are also constantly competing for RAM with other running apps.

Depending on the antivirus app you use, the amount of resources consumed can increase exponentially, even enough to slow down your phone.

Then there's the issue of false positives. Many anti-malware apps sometimes flag legitimate apps as malware. Some tools even take action on these supposedly malicious apps to "protect users."

If you download popular antivirus applications from less reputable vendors, you could be giving malware the keys to an attack. Malware disguised as antivirus software is often one of the most dangerous types of malware. You could be easy prey, since you’ve given it all the admin rights and privileges.

This allows them to bypass the user's request to click OK , so the fake antivirus app constantly runs in the background, performs malicious actions, and even serves ads. Instead of doing its job, some antivirus apps on the market actually harm the device.

Android antivirus vendors often exaggerate the truth about malware

According to Statista, Android is by far the most popular mobile operating system in the world. With a 73% market share, even Apple’s iOS is dwarfed. Being the most popular mobile computing platform comes at a price. Every month there’s some news story about Android malware that will surely destroy your smartphone.

While most of these reports are based on facts, they overstate the true risk of malware infection. Antivirus vendors often exaggerate this news, making malware infections seem like a pandemic.

In fact, while Android malware is still a potential threat, as long as your security settings are up to date, your chances of getting infected are usually lower than you think. If you do things right, Android's security measures should negate the need for a third-party anti-malware app.

The Android operating system has come a long way since its vulnerable early days. While it's still a popular target for malicious apps, Android is inherently capable of keeping you safe from the vast majority of malicious apps.

Android's built-in anti-malware features

One of the most significant malware risks for Android smartphones is that users are messing with the default security rules on their devices. Quite a few Android users change their security settings, inadvertently creating a gap for malicious apps to infiltrate.

The majority of Android malware gets onto smartphones through suspicious apps. While some of these apps are sometimes sneaked into the Play Store before being vetted, Google has a robust system for identifying and removing these types of apps.

By default, Android doesn't allow users to install apps from other sources. If you only install apps from the Play Store, you already have a strong layer of security against malware.

Unfortunately, many people choose to install apps from other sources. To be fair, there are plenty of legitimate reasons why you might want to install apps from other sources. However, sticking to apps only on the Play Store will help you benefit from Google’s robust security checks on apps.

Devastating malware can’t survive long on the Google Play Store . Google regularly scans apps for malware whenever they’re uploaded. There’s also a rigorous human review process to scrutinize any apps that appear to be problematic.

Occasionally, you may hear about some software in the Play Store that is collecting user information or flooding it with ads. Google has sophisticated tools to detect and deal with these threats quickly.

Ideally, a good anti-malware app should be able to scan your phone for malicious behavior, speed up your phone, improve security measures, and protect your data. Most of what’s being marketed as anti-malware apps don’t do that. On the other hand, the Android operating system, backed by security tools like Play Protect, excels in this regard.

Let Play Protect keep you safe!

Play Protect is built to effectively fight the latest malware, using sophisticated algorithms that can learn and adapt to new threats. Thanks to the access it has, Play Protect can dive deep into your smartphone to detect malicious behavior and take necessary action.

Malicious apps will even be uninstalled from your device without your explicit permission.

That's not all! Google's Play Protect can also monitor your network connections and the URLs you download, then warn you whenever a website or network connection is unsafe.

No third-party Android anti-malware app has as many permissions and resources as Play Protect. According to digital security research firm XYPRO, Google's Play Protect is probably the most effective "malicious behavior scanning" app available on Android.

Do you need antivirus software?

The big question is: If the Android operating system has most of what's needed to protect your smartphone, is it worth risking device security for what third-party anti-malware vendors promise?

While there are some quality anti-malware apps on the market from reputable companies, the Android operating system comes with most of what you need to stay safe. If you have an Android antivirus app on your device right now, remove it if you have any doubts.