Virus protector for tablet?

Does anyone have a good virus protector app or program for a android tablet? I have read that some of them can slow things down. I have tentatively downloaded a free Norton one because I recognized the name. Is there another one people would recommend over that? any help would be appreciated. thanks.

You don't need one.

One of the tablets we use at work has Lookout installed on it. No idea if it's any good.

Not really sure if you need one so long as you only install from the app store.

I have AVG Antivirus on mine. I have no clear reference point to how well it works compared to other products.

Yeah I use AVG as well on phones and tablets. Don't know how well it works or whatnot but I guess it's one of those things that you only notice when it doesn't work.

I usually chunk tablets into a volcano if they are acting fishy.

I've never found any good one, I just end up going with the nuclear option (reflashing) whenever my phone starts acting weird.

@jasoncooke said:

I imagine this is only true if you don't jailbreak/root the device. If you do, then you remove the safeguards that prevent malware from taking hold.

Rooting doesn't make your device inherently less secure, it's still down to the user.

If you're rooted and install a malicious app, then decide to give it Superuser privileges (so it can really fuck around with stuff), then you have messed up three times:

1. You disabled the security check in the Android OS options (which rooting doesn't by itself) which enables the installation of apps that aren't from the Play Store (app store)
2. You then installed a malicious app
3. You allowed it to have Superuser permissions, which means you accepted that the malicious app wanted to run at a higher privilege and now has free reign of the device, you dummy (apps are forced to ask for permission first, even if it's malicious)

Generally there's little reason to perform step #1 and if you do it, you should be very certain you're not downloading from a questionable website. 99.9% of the apps you'd want will be on the Play Store so the option should stay checked. It's mainly piracy and apps Google don't want on their store (like adblockers) that you can't access officially.

Anti-virus/malware software on phones and tablets seem stupid and a waste of resource/battery to me, I've never met anyone who has had malware on their phone and I definitely haven't! Just don't install apps from dodgy websites, which is the same golden rule whether you are on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS (Jailbroken) or...well anything really.

Even antivirus on PC's is kind of pointless unless you are going to crazy random sites and downloading crap, or downloading every zip/exe/txt file someone sends you. On tablets, it's even more pointless unless you're download APK files from random sites.

@thomassomething: In my experience if your grandma knows the name of any security suite, it's either garbage or a scam. Recognizable names are not a great thing in AV, in my experience. Norton and McAfee get far more complaints in my experience than the smaller guys like AVG, Kaspersky, etc.
That said unless you are very risky in your use of a tablet (VERY risky) you should probably just avoid them. Simple common sense is usually enough to keep you secure on a phone or tablet, assuming it's running an up to date OS.

I agree with what others have said, Android is fairly secure even when rooted, but I want to add some things. There can still be some minor exploits and issues on Chrome and other apps that might mess with an Android phone's behaviour, which isn't really dangerous but might look like you caught a virus or whatever. And like I said above, I find reflashing/factory reset to be the easiest solution, because all those "anti-virus"/"perfomance fix" apps are kinda garbage and worse than just living with those problems.