Despite misconception, smartphones are just as vulnerable to malicious hacking threats as your PC. Surprisingly, the antivirus brands that are considered good at protecting your desktop, don’t necessarily protect your phone as well.
Our in-depth researchers have tried and tested all the most effective antivirus programs to bring you the best options and pricing for your mobile devices, including looking at recognized antiviruses such as BullGuard, Panda and McAfee. Though these known providers offer good protection for your devices, we found the following provide better protection to your mobile phone.
Note that while some of the following antivirus programs are cross-platform, for antivirus options specific to your mobile phone, you may also want to check out free software for Android and iOS.
AVG Antivirus
Platform: Android
AVG was developed by a subsidiary of Avast and has one of the strongest feature sets of any solution we’ve tried. While it drops the firewall from Avast, it adds anti-theft features.
Performance Review
AVG performs similarly to Avast (that is, strong detection rates and few false positives with little system impact).
Free Features
- Wi-Fi scanner
- App locker
- Storage cleaner
- Call blocker
- Photo locker
- Power Saver
- Anti-theft phone tracking with Google Maps
A RAM booster is also available, but we highly recommend not using it. In fact, RAM boosters, in general, should be avoided as the operating system is capable enough to handle RAM management by itself.
Paid Features
- Camera trap
- Removing ads for other AVG apps
Avira Antivirus Security
Platform: Android, iOS
Performance Review
Detection rates for malware and spyware are excellent, with only one false positive during testing. The app is very light on system performance and battery life.
Free Features
- Real-time protection
- Blacklisting
- External storage device scanning, including SD cards
- Privacy tracker that warns you whenever a hacker attempts to access confidential information like messages and credit card payment details
- Anti-theft feature for tracking the phone’s location
- Phishing protection in web browsers
Paid Features
- Camera protection
- More web browser security features
Personally, we don’t believe the Pro version is worth the money.
Bitdefender Antivirus Free
Platform: Android, iOS
Bitdefender is a great, yet simple antivirus without complex configuration or too many features.
Performance Review
The malware detection is good, but the app is great at being lightweight. Scanning is mostly in the cloud, so Bitdefender is fast and has an extremely low impact.
Free Features
- Real-time protection
- App scanning
Paid Features
- Additional anti-malware features
- Privacy protection
- Web protection
- Anti-theft
- App locker
- Removing ads
Sophos Mobile Security
Platform: Android, iOS
Sophos has the best free, ad-free solution in the Store. Its user interface, however, looks rather amateurish.
Performance Review
Excellent detection rates despite a few false positives.
Free Features
- Anti-malware
- Theft protection
- Ability to wipe all data from the phone via SMS
- Web filtering
- App locker
- App scanner
- Call blocker
- Authenticator
- Wi-Fi scanner
- External storage scanner
- Spam blocking
Trend Micro Mobile Security
Platform: Android, iOS
Performance Review
Trend Micro performs consistently well when tested with no false positives or discernable performance impact.
Free Features
- Anti-malware
- Anti-phishing
- Privacy features for Facebook
- Ability to disable all non-essential processes
Once again, ignore the RAM optimizer.
Paid Features
- Anti-theft
- App locking
- Call filtering
Lookout Mobile Security
Platform: Android, iOS
Lookout is pre-installed on some Android devices, particularly those on the T-Mobile network.
Performance Review
Lookout offers decent scanning with reasonable accuracy. There hasn’t been much third-party testing on its performance, but we didn’t notice any slowdowns while using the app.
Free Features
- Anti-phishing
- Anti-malware
- Anti-theft
- Wi-Fi scanning
Paid Features
- Identity theft protection and insurance
While certainly unique, the paid option is rather pricey.
MobiShield
Platform: Android, iOS
While MobiShield has an Android port, it’s mostly known for its iOS app’s positive reviews on the App Store. Therefore, that’s where we did the bulk of our testing.
Features
MobiShield runs on a subscription model, and the fee is pretty cheap at only a dollar a month.
- File encryption (unique to this app, as far as we know)
- Network monitoring
- Backing up and recovering contacts
- Battery, memory, and disk usage monitor
Security Master
Platform: Android
This app is essentially an upgraded version of CM Security, Security Master technically has an iOS port, but it hasn’t been updated since last year and has been downloaded very few times there.
Features
- Anti-malware and antivirus
- App locker
- Message scanner
- Wi-Fi scanner
- Storage cleaner
- Notification cleaner
- A “CPU Cooler” function to prevent overheating
- Battery saver
- Call blocker
- Camera trap
- VPN service
There’s also a RAM booster that, again, you shouldn’t use.
Avast Mobile Security
Platform: Android, iOS
Performance Review
Avast scored very highly when tested for malware protection. It had no false positives and doesn’t considerably affect the phone’s performance or battery life.
Free Features
- Warns you of malicious or infected apps
- Trojan protection
- Anti-spyware
- Call blocker
- Power Saver
- Storage cleaner
- Firewall
- Web browser protection against malicious URLs
- Wi-Fi scanner
- Secure photograph storage
Paid Features
- Removing ads
- Tech support directly from the app
- App locking
- SIM card scanning
- Camera trap (takes a picture with the front camera upon a failed passcode attempt)
Read more about our top picks for best overall antivirus programs and discover which offer the features that best suit your security needs.