kevincott

Been more about Android malware/Trojan horses in the news lately.

I am wondering if anyone has used Norton security on their Prevail and their opinions/experience. Also please post about any good anti-virus.

Do these slow Prevail or run-down battery life?





edit: I run Norton Security Suite and Microsoft Security Essentials on my Win7 machines, my major reasoning for using Norton.

Last edited by kevincott; May 18th, 2012 at 02:24 PM.

Necrotoxin

I personally won't touch Norton with a 10 foot pole. Long story but let's just say that from my personal experiences I don't think it's worth wasting processing power on it when there are other anti-viruses (even free) that work much better, have their definition tables updated more often and use better heuristics engines than Norton. I'm of course talking about the computer here. As far as free AV's go, I use Avira Free which is nagware (lol) but it does a much better overall job of detecting threats and if I were to pay for a subscription to an antivirus it would be NOD32 hands down.

That being said, I don't see much need for an antivirus on my phone. I download apps only from reputable places written by reputable authors. I personally only ever have a small number of apps anyway so once you find those apps you typically use, you tend to reuse the same ones.

Alternatives to Norton on the android are slim but there are a few such as AVG (This one on the PC is one of the few I consider worse than Norton) Avast! and the one I did try for a while and was fairly impressed with, Lookout Mobile Security.

Please don't flame me for disliking Norton (and AVG) I'm only stating my opinion and you are entitled to yours. Some people get so protective over their anti-virus of choice it's ridiculous.

EDIT:
You really might want to try out the Twitter AV, I've heard good things about it.

^That was sarcasm btw.

Last edited by Necrotoxin; May 18th, 2012 at 03:20 PM.

cwhatever

i run avast on phone and norton for 5 years on pc. no problems on either. pc i do, search, download anything and everything from anywhere and it tells me if problems on internet or email and most others have had at least 1 problem over 5 years. same thing my opinion and everthing works different for different systems.

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Necrotoxin

Not just different systems but different users as well. OFC most of us here won't download a video from supertotallyfreegreatpronforfreeforyouandme.com but some other people just aren't that bright lol. ^made up website btw.

cwhatever

yes, right, sometimes i download zips from mediafire and it says blocked something and then i just try again and all is fine. its like someone is just hideing out there ready to just jump on whatever train is going by. i still don't have any problems. i tried norton on phone and diddn't like it so just stuck with avast. thats just me.

wetbiker7

I'm with you Necrotoxin. I wouldn't touch Norton with a 10 ft pole either.

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sleedeane

What's "pron"?

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wetbiker7

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Lordvincent 90

lol

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junx

I have it on my prevail. After going through most of the other known virus scanners I settled with Norton. I like that it has features the others make you pay for plus it has a phone locator. Battery life is about the same I would guess, but I haven't really used my phone without a virus scanner. I know you don't need one, I'm just cautious about stuff like that.

76ford90lx

Is a anti virus really even necessary on a phone?? Who has ever got a virus on this forum? I get all my phone stuff here and it seems safe, oh and all my pron comes from a reputable site

Caeadas

theres been several instances of stuff on the google store being infected. Usually google will fix it quickly but its still there for a short time.

and as for the OP:

AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Android

Norton tested worse than several other AV apps, including lookout and avast

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kevincott

Here is my main issue with some of these products.

Products like Norton have been around awhile and are trusted. They make a profit so I feel their product, while not perfect, probably can be trusted. Even a free Android app builds brand awareness for their other paid services.

I just looked up Avast and saw 5mil+ downloads but no apparent way for them to turn a profit and I have not heard of that company before. What is their motivation for integrity? i.e. not say allowing 'sponsored' malware?

comments?

Last edited by kevincott; May 20th, 2012 at 06:30 PM.

inigomontoyasr

half-joking here and it's not really any help, purely commentary.

by extension of that logic you should be wary of any rom you haven't created yourself from source. who knows what hroark, skater and bloodawn have in their hidden agendas and how often their builds 'phone home' with your personal data.

remember carrierIQ?

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wetbiker7

I know that Kaspersky didn't rank that high in some of the tests but I've ran it on my PC's for years and that is what I now run on my Prevail.

kevincott

The forum community is more shared learning and friendship based. Also skater probably has a market of 5-200 Prevail users, hroark a bit more but still not an efficient delivery system for malware.

An anti-virus on GooglePlay obviously has the potential for 5million+ installs. If a Trojan Horse was in an anti-virus that rubbed out competing malware you have an extremely efficient delivery system.

76ford90lx

You trying to say that bloodawn has been looking at all my porn on my phone this entire time???

Get your own Blood!!!!!!

kevincott

Thanks for the comments.

I decided to go with one of the known companies (Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro ...) and am testing them out.

I realize that they are not the highest rated but personally I think a 65% product with known integrity will suit me better than a 90% product from developers with unknown motivations.

Caeadas

avast! Mission | Our Unique Business Model


Avast has been around for many years, and they're consistently ranked pretty high. the only reason you haven't heard of them is because they don't get computer manufacturers to bloat computers or push their stuff in the store, like norton or mcafee. Most of their business comes from referrals. They aren't as pushy with their advertising. The reason they give their stuff away for free is the more computers they can scan for viruses, the faster they can find new ones and release updates for their paid programs. plus, the more of your friends that have an antivirus, the less likely one of them will send you a virus, which makes everyone more secure

Avast for android is simply advertising for avast for PC. You try it, and if you like it, you will look up and maybe buy the PC version. Even if you don't, they still have another eyeball looking for viruses

Caeadas

I had mcafee on my first dell computer when i bought it like ten years ago, paid the $70 for the year. about once a day i would have to switch my browser from firefox to IE, go into the mcafee program, and click through about 3 pages to update, or else it would annoy me every ten minutes. Then once McAfee decided that winamp streaming radio was some sort of hacker trying to steal my soul and refused to let me listen, I switched to Norton. Norton was better about updating but it was like dumping molasses in my cpu, it slowed everything down noticeably.

So after that year ran out, I started researching, and found avast. Went three years on the free version, then started buying it once I got heavy into warcraft and wanted to make sure i didn't get hacked. Still use it today on all three of my comps, my nephews laptop, my brothers two comps and all the android phones we have.

I'm quite aware of the "motivations" of the so-called big names with "known integrity." If they spent half as much time working on their product as they did working on deals with computer makers to fill your comp with bloat, they would be a LOT better. Just because something is free, doesn't mean it's bad. and just because something is expensive, doesn't mean its not garbage.

kevincott

Thanks for the post. I was not aware that Avast had a history.

elite001mm

No... NO NO NO. Please save yourself the headache and use avast on android and norton on pc. I had norton on my razr and once it locked me out of my phone for no apparent reason. I restarted the phone and it worked fine but now it says anti-theft is disabled when it shouldent be and i am done screwing with it. I recently installed avast and i have had no problems. It does everything the paid version of norton does, and does it better. The first time it scanned it found a trojun that came from the android market (Go locker) <-- just a heads up) that norton had missed. So- norton on pc GOOD norton on android BAD. I recommended avast

elite001mm

Woops... didnt mean to put the emoticon in there

kevincott

I have been using avast for several days now and had an interesting issue (not sure avast related but read on).

I went to unsleep my phone and it appeared dead, would not unsleep or reboot.


I yanked the battery and rebooted to find my battery lost about 60% (in about an hour) and a 2nd copy of avast was on my phone.

Avast gives the option on install to change its name and I did on the old copy.