Apple has seemingly decided to crack down on antivirus and antimalware apps, removing them from the App Store. Although there has been no official statement from Apple on a policy change, Apple’s loose guidelines allow them to pull pretty much anything at any time, particularly something like antivirus which has questionable utility within the sandboxed iOS environment of iPhones and iPads.
Great move by Apple. Get rid of these scammers. I hope Google follows soon.
The problem with antivirus apps is that many should be renamed to something else like ‘System Security and Tweaks’ – as they perform lots of other functions. Not speaking in favor of antivirus apps (in general) but am speaking in favor of additional safeguards that *may* be lacking in Android and/or iOS.
Lots of these additional safeguards can be found in other apps but few integrate them all into a central place. Even with duplicate security safeguards, some features may be better implemented on these so-called “antivirus” apps vs the OS itself or standalone apps that perform similar functions. I’m just saying, let’s not get caught up in semantics.
Depending on the “antivirus” app, some features may include some or all of the following:
Block Malicious URLS
Non-Rooted FIREWALL (not as effective but it’s something)
Rooted Firewalls (MITM over WiFi too)
Ad Detector (details of their tracking systems)
Geo-Fencing (actions performed if outside perimeter)
Backup (contacts, SMS, apps, photos, etc)
Call & SMS Filters/Blockers
Locate Lost Phone
Remote data recovery
Remote Lock and “Memory” (Storage) Wipe
Notification of SIM card change
Vaults – photos and other data types
Take photo if passcode entered incorrectly
Locker (apps, contacts, sms messages, etc)
Antivirus (sharing SD Cards, Users w/no Play Store)
System cleaners
AntiMalware (protection against OEM backhanded crap)
More… (I just looked at two “antivirus” apps)
You forgot to include “log all the keys”. But seriously, we are talking about sandboxed App Store apps, are’t we?
Apple’s app sandbox prevents all the above things from being implemented so if it advertises such features, then it is fake.
These could work but then it has pretty much nothing to do with security.
Google is more prone to mallware than Apple because of their tactics.
I’ve had apps that upon installation they did not say that they need to access my location, but once installed and running they actually located me through in app options.
There is also the trouble of being infected when browsing on the device. It’s not like you can brick your phone (although they were cases) but the fact is that the risk of infection does not come only from the Play Store itself.
There are plenty of stores that host mallware and I’m sure there are plenty users that installed pirated APK copies just because they don’t like to pay any bucks for software, regardless if it’s 100 $ or sub 1 $.
It’s just like in a PC where if you don’t buy legally the products from safe sites and think before you click on a spam link you actually don’t need an antivirus.