The endurance test included Android apps from Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, F-Secure, Google, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, Sophos and TotalAV. These needed to track down and block nearly 17,500 commonly available and new malware apps over 6 months. What’s more, they needed to correctly identify the nearly 10,000 harmless apps, without producing any false positives.

It quickly became evident in testing which security apps users can count on, or if they are already using these, that they’ve made the right choice. And even though there were apps that may have faltered, even they can offer a high level of protection.

When nearly 17,500 dangerous apps for Android are waiting behind the door

The first and foremost job of a security app is to hold back the infected apps. The lab divided up the detection test into two segments. The work starts with a real-time test, which pits the security tools against nearly 9,000 brand-new malware apps that were found online. These apps are switched out over the course of the endurance test with new ones. In the second test segment, the system watchdogs need to identify nearly 9,000 malware apps. But in this case, these apps have been circulating online for a few weeks already. Likewise, these sets of malware samples are swapped out with different ones.

The chart underlines the good performance offered by the security apps. The apps from Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Norton showed no weaknesses in the endurance test, correctly filtering out nearly 17,500 harmful apps without fail. It made no difference whether the apps had been online for a while or were brand-new.

The app from McAfee only made one mistake in the real-time test, attaining 99.9 instead of 100 percent. Sophos fell short of the 100-percent marker in both segments, ranking 99.9 percent in each. Nevertheless, these 8 apps earned their place on the chart scoring the full 6 points.

Both F-Secure and TotalAV experienced a number of minor detection errors scoring 5.8 and 5.5 points, respectively. Lagging behind was Google Play Protect, which attained only 99.6 and 99.8 percent in the two segments, leading to a score of 5.5 out of 6 points.

Malware protection? But what about the battery?

In the best case scenario, a security app will be able to detect every single attacker. But if battery performance suffers in the process, it doesn’t bode well for the protection solution. That’s why the lab checks the performance of system resources and CPU loads, the amount of data consumed and the amount of drain on the battery that comes with app usage. Users will be pleased to find out that the security apps hardly strained system resources or excessively drained the battery. The table lists the test results: all 11 of the protection apps earned the full 6 points for their good achievements.

But now, is the app harmful or not?

Who hasn’t been there before? A cool new game just dropped, and suddenly the security app is claiming that the user is at risk. Is it true, or is it just another false alarm? The lab handles this dilemma in the endurance test using 10,000 harmless apps from the Google Play Store and other app stores.

10 of the 11 apps performed this feat brilliantly and didn’t rise the alarm once. For this, they each received 6 points. The only security app to encounter a series of issues in the endurance test was Google Protect Play, which led to point deductions in the end: 5.7 out of 6 points.

Good protection is just one installation away

The 6-month endurance test under Android 15 presents a clear picture of which security apps the users can rely on. 8 out of the 11 products tested completed testing with the maximum score of 18 points. For users looking for 100-percent detection rates, the apps from Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Norton – a couple of which are even free of charge – stand out as excellent choices.

These system watchdogs detected the infected apps with absolute perfection and didn’t place any harmless ones in quarantine, in contrast to Google’s security product. What’s more, most of the apps also include useful additional tools.

Tip: If you are already using a premium security package on a Windows device, there’s a good chance that it also includes a license for Android devices.