Does Android phone need AV ?

[Winterlight]

I know that Android AV is not that powerful as PC versions and have so many limitations but does it actually can detect malicious app/website/download ?
I talk about brands that already have really good reputation on PC and can trust them. Btw I talk about paid version only not free AV versions.

[Levent]

Depends on how valuable the data you keep on your phone and how important of a person you are. 
 

I personally haven’t bothered. 

[Winterlight]

1 hour ago, Levent said:

Depends on how valuable the data you keep on your phone and how important of a person you are. 

I'm just casual user as most phone user. Malware app probably is not big problem for me because I not download low reputation even from Google Play and never download app outside Google Play. More important does Android AV can actually block malware websites that time to time appears in Google or other search engines even on first pages. As well website that maybe not have any malware itself but they have suspicious ads that possible lead to infected websites.

[Levent]

4 minutes ago, Winterlight said:

I'm just casual user as most phone user. Malware app probably is not big problem for me because I not download low reputation even from Google Play and never download app outside Google Play. More important does Android AV can actually block malware websites that time to time appears in Google or other search engines even on first pages.

IIRC, due to changes in permissions after Android 9, apps can longer monitor network and process traffic. So I am not entirely sure. 

[chanchan05]

If you want to block malware websites I think you're better off with a VPN that actually does that server side.

[E-waste]

Instead of a VPN, you would probably rather use a dns filter.

 

A VPN completely re-routes your entire connection to some random network you'll have to blindly trust.  I don't recommend any vpn service that you haven't researched extensively, even then, it's usually more than you need.

 

DNS filter services only intercept all of your devices website requests and I believe probably respect your privacy far more than a vpn service.

 

A dns provider like Cloudflare, 1.1.1.2 for malware, .3 for malware plus other content blocks.

 

https://one.one.one.one/family

 

Cloudflare is the world's fastest dns resolver, which means when your device asks for the ip address of a website, it responds faster than any other dns service in existence currently.

 

Quad9, clearly a play on google's defualt, setting your dns to 9.9.9.9 will also help protect you from malware, it's either https://quad9.com or org, not sure.

 

https://nextdns.io/ will provide you a cloud-based account that allows you to block any website you so choose with any device that allows configuring dns--and for those that do not, connecting such a device without configurable dns, to a wi-fi network that does have dns configured to nextdns (even with ipv4 or ipv6, easier than you might imagine!) will still allow you to filter whatever you want!

 

NextDNS analytics page offers a history of many previous dns entries, helping you to see what has been loading from your devices.  I wish there were an easy "block" button like in pi-hole, but for now, you can copy and paste any entry in the analytics or log page and add it to the denylist page.

 

Alternatively, you can type

 

*

 

just a simple asterisk into thr denylist and one-by-one build up an extensive allow list, though highly time consuming, would be useful in starting out, to build up your denylist for things you do want blocked, then turn off that

 

*

 

entry and you ensure nothing so far is loading that you would like to be blocked.  It can teach you quite a lot about what goes on in your devices.