A in-depth review of the ESET Mobile Security App

Introduction

I was recently given the opportunity to test out a leading antivirus program, or AV for short, from the Android Market. ESET Mobile Security is a multi-award-winning AV application (App) that has reached 500,000 – 1,000,000 installs across the Google Play Store market. With tons of features and strong protection against everyday attacks it’s definitely worth checking out. The app has received an average rating of 4.3 out of 5 with over 7,000 reviews on the Google Play Store

In this review I’ll be looking at things such as: background, features, and style and I’ll include some general comments. It should be noted that my testing was performed on my Samsung Galaxy S III running Android 4.1.2 and the app was ESET Mobile Security App, version 1.1.995.

Figure 1 – Main Menu

Features

The AV is packed with special security features such as the main antivirus, anti-spam, anti-theft, and even a security audit. Starting with the antivirus feature, it provides what any Windows Desktop AV would offer. It is constantly running in the background and has real-time protection. Now I know what you may be thinking, what about my battery life? Well on my S III the ESET app was only responsible for a small 3% of total battery usage. Compared to my everyday usage I saw zero battery drain or loss of performance from the time of installing the application. Inside the antivirus menu you have the option to select a full system scan, including SD cards, scan one particular folder, and view any quarantine items. When running a scan the application reviews every file but simultaneous is not permitted. Although my Android device has close to 1000 files the antivirus scaned all of them in less than 26 seconds. However, if you have considerably more files you may need to give the scan(s) a few minutes to complete.

Figure 2 – ESET has found threats.

Moving on to the anti-spam, since the security software runs 24/7 you now have the option of blocking incoming SMS, MMS, calls or even outgoing calls to and from your device. There is even an option to block anonymous calls or unknown contacts. Personally I feel that it may not be as useful to the average phone user, but to a business person it could come in handy. Plus it will even block those pesky spam messages.

Figure 3 – Anti-theft menu

Next we have the anti-theft feature. Now we have all heard about somebody losing their phone and never seeing it again. Well, ESET has incorporated an anti-theft feature to ensure full security over your lost device. If you password-protect your device, which you should anyway, then there’s little a thief could do, although a modest hacker could easily bypass the Android pass lock. To save your personal files the anti-theft menu has an option to add in “trusted friends” who can send a simple text message to your device that can either remote lock, find device, password reset, or even wipe the entire phone. All these options require an external password for even more security.

Figure 4 – The AV showing a Safe Mode (left) and a Security Risk (right).

Finally, we have the security audit. What the audit does is scan the device to test whether or not there are security holes. For example, I keep my Bluetooth on 24/7 as I use it in my car, although keeping Bluetooth enabled gives hackers a way to send malware directly to my phone within seconds. The audit checks the battery, Bluetooth, Data, free disk space, GPS, cellular network, installed applications, your memory card, and the USB connection. Then it will let you know the best action to protect any security holes. Also within the security audit menu is a built-in task manager that displays processes, services and running tasks.

Style

The application is extremely user friendly. With a nice, easy to read font and a subtle layout anybody could use the application to its full potential. Within each menu there are settings and help menus to guide you along the way. There are also friendly graphics or logos for each of the menus. When you first install the application a notification icon is displayed; personally I did not enjoy the bright “eye” logo in the notification area but ESET has an option to disable it.

Testing the Antivirus

Figure 5 – AV-test certification

Any AV has to provide excellent protection against all mobile attacks. When viewing the scores of ESET Mobile Security from www.av-test.org it did fairly well when it came to protection with a score of 4.0 out of 6.0 and blocking 95% of the entire virus samples used (869 samples). Another plus is the fact that it did not create any false warnings of legitimate software from the Google Play Store.

Operating Systems

The ESET mobile security app is offered on Android 4.0, 3.0, 2.3, 2.2, 2.1 and 2.0 but will not allow the installation onto any ‘rooted’ devices. It is also available for download on Windows Mobile 6.5, 6.1, 6.0 and 5.0. Lastly there is a Symbian^3 and S60 version.

You may ask about an AV for Apple’s iOS. Well, Apple blocks companies from adding AVs to their App Store. Apple claims that their software is virus free and has a very low risk of receiving a virus. We shall see.

Pricing
This mobile security does not come free, however. ESET does offer a 30 day free trial so you can experience the full effect of their powerful AV, but after this period it will set you back $19.95 per year for a 1 user license.

Conclusion

A great deal has been covered in this review, and I hope I have given you a full in-depth view of this mobile security application. One last thing to note is that during my time testing the ESET application I also downloaded other AVs to compare it with. If the apps were free, then they came with pesky advertisements or, if they were paid, some wouldn’t even offer a free trial. What I found is that none of them could match the looks and performance of the ESET Mobile Security app.

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