One feature that continues to be important is safe-browsing protection, which safeguards the user from infected websites and phishing. Only Antiy and Tencent do not offer them. Important features include anti-theft functions. The lab awarded a maximum of one point for the features offered by the apps, as most of them are not security-relevant. They had to suffice with a meager 4.5 to 3.3 points. This cost the security apps valuable points. The apps from Antiy, Cheetah Mobile, F-Secure and Sophos experienced far more false detections. That is why on average, 5.8 and 5.7 points were still awarded.
For McAfee, Alibaba and AhnLab, the false alarms only occurred sporadically.
For this, the maximum 6 points were awarded in each case.Īn additional 8 apps repeatedly reported false positives during the installation of normal Android apps. In all of the specified test areas, the following 8 apps and Google Play Protect showed neither abnormalities, nor were there any false positives: Avast, Bitdefender, G Data, Kaspersky Lab, PSafe, Symantec, Tencent and Trend Micro. If detection is working properly, then there should be no false alarms.
For this purpose, the laboratory proceeds to download from the Google Play Store and other sources roughly 2,500 to 3,000 Android programs, and installs them. Furthermore, the test examines what the protection apps report during mass installation of innocuous apps. Under the collective term of usability, the laboratory precisely examines what the app does during the test: if it requires too much processing power, then it negatively effects the battery just as much as constantly accessing data in the background. Regardless of what good a protection app may be: if it annoys users or constantly drains the battery of the user's device, it will be dumped from it. Annoying protection apps are dumped from the device Google Play Protect comes in dead last with 56.8 and 61.5 percent detection. AhnLab, F-Secure and Ikarus still reached high rates in both test segments with 98.2 to 100 percent. Bitdefender and Kaspersky Lab detected 99.8 percent on average in the first segment, and 100 percent in the second. In all three tests, and throughout both test steps, 7 of the 16 security apps always detected the malware apps 100%: Antiy, Cheetah Mobile, G Data, Sophos, Symantec, Tencent and Trend Micro.įollowing with 99.9% detection in the real-world test and 100% on the reference set were the protection apps from Alibaba, Avast, McAfee and PSafe. Thus, in total, it was necessary to filter roughly 18,000 malware apps. Later, the object was to detect the reference set containing an additional 2,800 apps with malware which had already been wreaking havoc for 2 weeks. In each of the three rounds, all protection apps were initially required to detect some 3,200 brand-new apps with malware samples in the real-world test. Last place finisher is Google Play Protect with a total of only 6 pointsĮndurance test with nearly 18,000 malware apps He additional apps from Ikarus, Sophos, F-Secure, Antiy, and Cheetah Mobile achieved 11.5 to 10.3 points out of 13. Following close behind are the apps from McAfee with 12.8 points, Alibaba with 12.7 and AhnLab with 12.4 points. This top score was achieved by the apps from Avast, Bitdefender, G Data, Kaspersky Lab, PSafe, Symantec, Tencent and Trend Micro. In the first two categories, the laboratory awards a maximum of 6 points, and for features a maximum of 1 point. 8 out of 16 apps with the maximum point scoreĪll apps, and Google Play Protect, were tested within three separate test rounds from November 2017 to March 2018 in the categories of protection, usability and features. Play Protect was not able to keep up with the detection rates of specialized security apps.
In the tests, all 16 apps, along with Google Play Protect, were required to detect nearly 9,500 brand-new infected apps and filter over 8,500 apps with malware samples that have already been known for 2 weeks. This is also documented by the result of the endurance test throughout a period of 6 months. Google's aim to protect users from malicious apps is indeed honorable and ambitious, but the protection still doesn't work the way Google intended.