The other day a report by AV-Comparatives showed that out of 250 antivirus apps on the Google Play Store that were tested for reliability, only 80 of them passed the standard anti-virus tests. The rest could not detect at least 30% of around 2,000 venomous apps that AV-Comparatives threw at them – these apps misidentified harmless apps as malicious one with some of them even flagging themselves as malicious.

The risk is not just having your phone infected by malware (something that Kenyans really should look 0ut for since they are among the top 10 countries worst affected by malware on their phones) but these fake anti-virus apps have been known to steal your data – your device’s model, live GPS location, the phone number, apps you have installed and any other information they can access since they are usually given deep access permission to run on your phone.

If you are the kind to rely on anti-virus apps on your phone for one reason or the other, then here’s a list of apps that passed AV-Comparatives test, some of them are free while a good number of them are premium apps, but at least you can be certain that they will do what they claim to – keep your smartphone free of malicious software.

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Here are reliable antivirus apps for your android smartphone

• AhnLab
• Antiy
• Avast
• AVG
• AVIRA
• Bitdefender
• BullGuard
• Chili Security
• Emsisoft
• ESET
• ESTSoft
• F-Secure
• G Data
• Kaspersky Lab
• McAfee
• PSafe
• Sophos
• STOPzilla
• Symantec
• Total Defense
• Trend Micro
• Trustwave

On top of this, AV-Comparatives does recommend a few more things to watch out when searching for the right anti-virus app to download. For instance, do not rely on user reviews, since few users actually rate apps based on accuracy and many crafty app developers will pay for positive reviews, Look for apps from trusted and well-known companies, especially those with respected desktop antivirus software and avoid Free apps, even those from trusted developers, should only be used for a trial run before purchasing the premium version, and not relied upon for effective antivirus protection.