Tag Archives: Mobile

AVG

Vulnerable Mobile Apps are just waiting to be exploited

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The Apple AppStore and Google Play are doing a great job in guarding their mobile users from downloading and installing malicious apps.

By centralizing App distribution, mobile platform owners can prevent hackers from uploading malicious apps and potentially infecting millions of users. This is a great lesson that we learned from the PC days where a decentralized distribution system, and open platform, made it easy for malware to spread.

Can we claim a victory on the hackers?  Not quite yet.

The fact that the AppStore and Google Play managed to control the distribution of malicious apps does not mean there are no vulnerable apps out there.

Hackers are clever; they have found ways to get around stringent app store controls by exploiting existing non-malicious apps that are vulnerable. This can be done either via a different app, by inspecting data on transit or even via the web, while you browse from your mobile browser.

 

How can an app be vulnerable?

There are three main ways that an app can be vulnerable to hackers.

Data transmission

Almost all mobile apps transmit and receive data between our devices and remote servers. This allows apps to update, send statistics, check licenses, monitor analytics and so on. There are two ways that this leaves app vulnerable:

  • No encryption – if data leaving your device is unencrypted, hackers can ‘look inside’ it and get your passwords, credit card number or any other personal details you many not want to share. This is most common on public Wi-Fi hotspots like those found in airports, malls or coffee shops.
  • Certificate validation – when apps send data to a remote server, it’s important that it is the correct one and not one owned by a hacker. The use of digital certificates on the server can help the app validate the server’s identity. Without these digital certificates, data can be at risk.

Data storage

As we use mobile apps, most of them store data locally on our devices. These often take the form of log files, which record our activities within an app, the strings we typed in it, cached data/reports and more. There are two ways that these files can leave apps vulnerable:

  • No encryption – storing data on the device can greatly improve app performance and user experience. However, leaving private data unencrypted on the device can be dangerous. A separate app installed on the device can potentially have a permission to access such file, ‘look inside’ and retrieve personal data.
  • Files left after uninstall – when we uninstall apps from our devices, many of us expect that all related files (with our private data in them) are also removed. However, this is no always the case. Apps often have permission to create files in various locations on our devices, these can be left behind when apps are removed. Such fragments can later be accesses by other apps to retrieve data.

3rd party components

It’s quite common for app developers to release their products out to the market very quickly. As time is short, developers reuse components (SDKs) from 3rd parties to support the functionality they need. Example of popular development tools and components can be found here – http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/dev

The issue with these toolkits is that they are not always secure. Here are a few examples:

  • Android WebView – many mobile apps display web content. In order to download and render such content on a mobile device, most Android developers use the WebView component. However this component was identified to be vulnerable to remote attacks – CVE-2012-6636.
  • Dropbox Android SDK – when mobile apps would like to integrate its functionality with cloud storage (like photo apps, wallets, vaults etc.) they integrate SDKs from cloud storage providers. The Dropbox Android SDK was found to be vulnerable – CVE-2014-8889. This vulnerability may enable theft of sensitive information from apps that use the vulnerable Dropbox SDK both locally by malware and also remotely by using drive-by exploitation techniques.
  • Configuration and development errors – as long as humans will continue to code software, vulnerabilities will exist. The increasing complexity of operating systems, databases, app logic and platforms, compounded by short development windows makes it very difficult for developers to catch each and every error in their code. Unfortunately this leaves large volumes of untested code that are potentially vulnerable.

 

Why do apps have these vulnerabilities?

Now that we have identified the main types of vulnerability found within mobile apps, it’s important to understand the root causes behind them. It’s not simply a question of bad coding.

Awareness

Just as with any problem, if you unaware of a risk you won’t pay attention to it. Most developers are trained to deliver functionality, not security.

Small development teams

Unlike PC products, most mobile apps require relatively small development teams. With the ever increasing functionality required and short time to market, the available time to spend on finding vulnerabilities is getting shorter and shorter.

Abandoned apps

Developers have abandoned thousands of apps due to low monetization. These abandoned apps are no longer supported and any vulnerabilities remain indefinitely.

Rush to market

The mobile world is moving faster than ever. Developers need to code and release their apps in almost ‘no time’. While the business demand functionality, that leaves almost no-time to security scanning and audits.

 

What can developers do to secure their Apps?

It’s not all bad news though, there are several things that app developers can do to improve the security of their apps.

  • Learn about secure coding and vulnerable SDKs to avoid common mistakes and deliver a secure app to your users.
  • Embed security testing in the general quality assurance procedures; from unit testing to continuous integration.
  • Use automated tools to statically and dynamically scan and test for vulnerabilities
  • Remove unneeded functionality from your code or stop the distribution of an app that is no longer supported.

 

What can App Store and Google Play do?

Still, developers are not entirely responsible for eradicating vulnerable apps. Official mobile stores employ automatic security scanners to identify malicious apps. These can often be very difficult to detect and it requires lots of resources and attention.

However, a lot of improvements can be made to help prevent the distribution of vulnerable apps.  I believe the most progress can be made in improving communication between the app stores and developers when issues arise:

  1. Developers should receive a notice once their app was found to be vulnerable.
  2. Apps that include popular development tools that were found vulnerable should be notified and asked to update the tool/SDK to a safe version.
  3. Developers should have sufficient time to release a fix, otherwise their app should be unlisted.
Reference: A list of top 10 Mobile Risks was published by OWASP group during 2014 : https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Mobile_Security_Project#tab=Top_10_Mobile_Risks
 

AVG

Our journey to over 100 million mobile downloads

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Every company, big, small or start-up faces the question of what will be big four years from now. While there is no way of knowing for sure, we can learn a lot from what happened four years back.

The smartphone platform was coming to life but was fragmented across a number of platforms. How could we find out which of the platforms would grow to be the biggest?

At the end of 2009, beginning of 2010, we identified Android as the platform of the future despite a market share of only 4%. Needless to say, it was hard to explain to our finance and marketing departments.

It’s no secret that the market can give you signals about what the future may hold, you just need to know where to look.

When we watched vendors like HP, BlackBerry and Nokia dip in 2010, we noticed that Android and iOS were heading in the opposite direction. In Nov 2010, we knew we had to take action. We decided to step into the mobile market and announced acquisition of a small team of five people providing Android security. This is where our journey started.

But a bigger company acquiring a start-up does not mean the problem solved. We knew that Google ranked apps in the store via keywords so we knew that we needed to get to the top of the list. If you search for antivirus on Google, we are at the top.

A year later, we to noticed another important method to improve rankings – user ratings.  If you want to achieve a number of downloads to really affect your business, you need a user rating of at least 4.4. So we invested in a team to ensure we could maintain this rating.

Today 137 apps have passed the 50 and 100m download milestones. Keywords and review ratings are no longer enough. We are a consumer company but we know our consumers needed to engage with our products.

Understanding user behaviour helps extend the lifetime of an app so we researched what functionality people wanted from an app. The result was a new app – Cleaner. Although the functionality was already in the antivirus app, downloads started to increase. We did the same for privacy and it also grew.

My advice would be “don’t stick to one app”. Add additional services and functionality to maintain growth.

We looked at adding value – could users register when they download? Terrible idea – we had a 40% drop when we introduced this because we failed to understand the consumer.

Before you ask for value from the user, make sure you can deliver value.

Of course, we removed this and returned to the original format.

These tactics helped us reach 100m downloads but that’s only half the story. Revenue is also crucial. In December 2014, we were ranked among the top 10 developers for generating app revenue (excluding games). In February, we reached number 5.

On our last earnings call, we announced 101m downloads. Keeping them is the next challenge.  Now our whole roadmap of our company is around mobile.

Picture a connected home where each device has its own app. It would be impossible to manage such a large number of individual applications. That’s why we introduced AVG Zen.

In conclusion, if you want to know what is going to be the big thing, don’t look just at the newspapers but look at stock. Search for big shifts. They don’t happen very often but they are there.

Also, don’t just stick to data. It can help you to optimize, but really, the “next big thing” can be only be found in one place your imagination. You won’t find that in the data.

AVG

AVG Surpasses 200 Million Users Worldwide

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MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA – March, 4, 2015 – AVG® Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company™ announced today that it has passed the significant milestone of 200 million active users worldwide including over 100 million on mobile. Over 50 million new customers have joined the AVG family over the last 18 months alone, using one or more of AVG’s consumer and business products for mobile and desktop platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows and Apple Mac.

“This is a very significant milestone for AVG and one that not many companies ever achieve. Not only have we reached the 200 million user mark, but more than half of these users are mobile customers. This highlights the successful evolution our company has made from a PC heritage to a strong mobile future,” said Gary Kovacs, Chief Executive Officer, AVG Technologies. “The last 18 months have been the fastest period of growth in the company’s history and we expect this rate to continue going forward. This also gives us an important and growing base of customers in over 200 countries who trust AVG with their digital safety, and to whom we can offer over time our enhanced services to increase the value and protection we provide.”

AVG announced the all-new version of AVG Zen™ this week during Mobile World Congress, showcasing its wide range of security features including important family safety services, support for industry partner applications and services, and support for the Internet of Things, all from one place.

Kovacs continued, “At AVG, we believe that everyone in the world has the inalienable right to security and privacy online. We are committed to enabling the next three billion people coming on line to explore the Internet with peace of mind and security.”

 

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About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG is the online security company providing simple, integrated software and services to secure devices, data and people. Over 200 million active users and businesses use AVG’s products and services worldwide.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

www.avg.com

 

Contacts:

US

Katie Han

Waggener Edstrom for AVG

[email protected]

+ 1 (212) 551 4807

UK

Samantha Woodman

Waggener Edstrom for AVG

[email protected]

+ 44 (0)20 7632 3840

Avast

Avast Launches Memory Saving Cleaner App for Android

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Today, Avast announced the launch of Avast GrimeFighter at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The new application helps Android users free extra memory on their devices with just a few taps so they can save the data that matters to them while enjoying a faster, smoother performance on their devices. 

GrimeFighterHow Avast GrimeFighter works

Avast GrimeFighter begins by scanning all applications on an Android device, identifying unimportant or unnecessary data that could be eliminated without damaging applications’ functionalities. Using GrimeFighter’s easy-to-use interface, users can choose from two modes that allow them to eliminate excess files with ease: Safe Cleaner and Advanced Cleaner. Safe Cleaner is a customizable scanner that quickly identifies unimportant data for instant, one-tap removal. Advanced Cleaner runs in parallel to Safe Cleaner, mapping all of the device’s storage and creating a simple overview of all files and applications that take up space. Advanced Cleaner locates inflated or unused applications and arranges them by file type, size, usage, or name, so users can permanently remove the files and free up storage space.

In addition to cleaning up unwanted data, Avast GrimeFighter helps maximize storage capacity by syncing with personal cloud storage accounts so users can manage their device’s storage without having to delete valuable data. Users can drag files to the cloud icon and GrimeFighter will instantly transfer them to a safe folder in the cloud. Avast GrimeFighter is currently compatible with Dropbox and can assist users in setting up a Dropbox account. Additional popular cloud storage solutions will be added soon.

How does excess data get accumulated?

Bits and pieces of data accumulate on your device, whether you are aware of it or not. GrimeFighter helps you locate excess data that you wouldn’t typically be able to find, such as data left over from initiated app downloads, residual data, thumbnails, and app caches. Popular apps, like Facebook and Instagram, also create excess data on your device as they inflate from their original download size when used regularly. Avast tested some of the most popular Android apps and found that their size can grow exponentially during one week of heavy usage:

                                                                         install size:          additional data accumulated:

1)    Facebook                      36.7MB                        153MB

2)    Flipboard                    12.6MB                        71.1MB

3)    Google Maps            23.21MB                       68.8MB

Avast GrimeFighter will help the more than one billion Android users free up anywhere from 500MB to 1GB of storage per device to enjoy faster performance and is available for download on Google Play.  

AVG

Inalienable Human Rights in the Digital World and the Trust Revolution

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Next week, the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry will open its gates once again for visitors from all over the world. More than 85,000 people are expected to attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, arguably the most important mobile event on the planet.

A few dozen members of Team AVG, including me, will attend MWC to speak at various conferences, sessions, and forums to share our experience and ideas with other attendees. For the second time in the last few years, I will have the honor to deliver a keynote address at the Congress.

As the mobile ecosystem continues to evolve and as leaders gather to discuss what’s ahead, what’s the most pressing issue that faces us all at MWC 2015? My answer is simple: digital security—and the lack thereof.

In the past several years, we have seen our world go completely and irreversibly mobile. Smartphones have become the most important and the most personal devices in our everyday lives, changing them for the better and opening new, previously unimaginable opportunities. However, we’ve also seen how this gold coin has its flipside: our activities are monitored, collected, and stored by numerous companies and organizations, both with and without our knowledge and consent.

“What we do online leaves a trace”.

The modern Internet has given rise to an economy based on collecting and monetizing user information. Finding value in data is not inherently bad, but the traditional notice and consent model that guides today’s environment was not designed for the complexities of data in our digital world. In addition, the privacy policies are often hard to understand, a difficulty which is compounded by the fact that people are consuming more and more of them in mobile form factors.

As a result, the lives of consumers are more exposed now than ever before in history. Their actions online are being watched, even scrutinized, and not necessarily towards benevolent ends. Moreover, the information that is legitimately collected and stored by legally-operating companies makes it easier for criminals, hacktivists, and even terrorists to hit tens of millions of unaware users with a single attack.

“Privacy is a major concern”.

But this climate can’t last. Fact is, consumers are catching on. Privacy is a rapidly-growing concern of theirs, and they’re increasingly sensitive to companies that fail to protect and respect it. A recent study clearly shows that by violating people’s privacy in more and more ways, companies undermine their trust and antagonize them. For example, almost half of respondents (49 per cent) said that trust prevented them from downloading apps or using them once they are installed. Over a third (34 per cent) said it stopped them buying any mobile apps and services.

It’s no surprise then that the penetration and adoption of new technologies is slowing down across all sectors – from hardware to software to services. We are witnessing the most amazing technological revolution in the history of mankind. Our collective and striking ability to innovate has revolutionized not only the marketplace, but also everyday life. And if we want to facilitate further development of technology and digital economy, we need to challenge our thinking again. It’s time for another revolution, a Trust Revolution Trust.

There are three essential avenues to make this Revolution happen:

  • Provide people with more powerful, simple and integrated security tools.
  • Commit to transparency and responsibility in the way we work with users’ data.
  • Educate users on how to keep themselves and their families safe in the Digital World, and ultimately make them smart users of smart devices.

This is the message that I am bringing to MWC 2015. Together, we must pledge to provide a basic level of security and privacy to everyone in the world. Re-establishing privacy and security as inalienable human rights in the cyberspace is a big challenge and no easy task, but it will ultimately be beneficial for consumers and vendors alike. A lasting and profitable business relationship should be built on trust.

“Users are demanding trust”.

Moreover, consumer data shows that more and more people are demanding trust, actively considering it when they choose whether or not to adopt a technology. To this end, a healthy and informed consumer base is more apt to contribute to a productive and profitable Internet.

I believe that Mobile World Congress 2015 is the right platform for initiating this discussion and starting to take meaningful, responsible steps towards making the digital world a safer, better place for everyone.

The unique gathering of mobile industry vendors, service providers, policy makers, and media in Barcelona next week has all the means necessary to shift today’s unhealthy privacy paradigm and usher in a better digital future for all of us.

Stay tuned for more news from the Mobile World Congress!

AVG

Making your Android battery life go further

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In this post, we’ll walk through not only how to limit your app resource use but also how to get the most out of your battery life, device performance, storage and data plan on Android devices.

This guide is for Android devices running Android 3.x or Android 4.x, including:

  • Smartphones (such as the Samsung Galaxy S5)
  • Tablets (Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Nexus 7)

Please note that though many phone and tablet makers use Android, they tend to change the way things look and work. We’ll show you how it works on different systems, but if you can’t find an option for your exact device, don’t worry as many of the steps are the same for most devices.

 

Limit Notifications

Notifications are one of the most useful features of a smartphone. They give users the information they need to know at a glance. However, not all notifications are necessary and some cause the phone to be constantly active, increasing the drain on the battery and mobile data.

To turn off unnecessary notifications, you need to go into the Apps or Application Manager in your device settings. This will show you a list of all the apps you have running.

To turn off notifications for an app, such as Asphalt 8, tap on it and uncheck the Show Notifications entry.

 

 

Control Your App

Limiting notifications is just one way to reduce the impact an app has on your device. In each app’s settings you will find additional options and features you may want to turn off. We’re going to use Facebook as an example to show you how it’s done.

Ranked among the most resource-heavy apps, there are several things users can do to limit Facebook’s resources consumption. As with before, the first step is to go to the app’s settings page (via the settings page and App Settings):

From there you will see a number of features that will tax your device, such as:

  • Facebook chat: If you do not use the chat feature, you can turn it off and use the standalone Messenger app instead.
  • Refresh interval: Every hour, Facebook automatically downloads content in the background, even if you’re not using the app. This impacts battery life and data consumption. You can limit this to every four hours or turn it off completely.
  • Location: Facebook can use the built-in GPS of your device to determine where you are and include that data in posts you make. Disabling this feature can help save battery life.
  • Notifications: This is an alternative way to turn off the app’s notifications.

While this is specific to Facebook, many apps on your smartphone or tablet have similar settings. In general, however, you should watch out for any that look to involve background activity, such as “Refresh Interval” or “Background Refresh” and limit the use of built-in features such as GPS/Location and Bluetooth.

 

Free Up Space & Limit Mobile Traffic

Our top storage offenders often start off as small apps or games but collect temporary clutter over time, and swell in size. When this happens, the impact is not just on your device’s storage, which obviously declines, but also on your mobile data.

Many apps tend to download data in the background in order to be instantly available once you open them. The NYTimes app for example automatically downloads news stories to your devices every 24 hours – even though you may not read all of them.

Almost every app stores temporary files, cookies and other date in order to work. In our internal tests, we found that simply browsing through a typical Facebook timeline for roughly 60 seconds produced over 5 MB of temporary files. The NYTimes app created a cache of 10 MB when we watched a 20 sec video and opened one news post.

This cache can be deleted on either a per-app basis or automatically. In this next tip, we’ll show you two ways to limit the growing storage impact of apps.

Open up the Application Manager or App menu from within your Settings menu. Tap on an app, such as NYTimes or Facebook and hit the Clean Cache Button (screenshot to the left):

 

Doing this for each app on a regular basis can be quite time consuming, which is why AVG built the AVG Cleaner for Android app (screenshot on the right). It scans all apps for these caches regularly and allows for the cleaning of all cache files automatically or in bulk.

The only downside of cleaning a cache may be that information, for example a Facebook image, which has been loaded and cached, may need a few extra moments to load when you open it the next time.

 

Reduce Data Traffic

In some cases, an app will include settings which allow the user to limit the amount of data it downloads over Wi-Fi or mobile data and stores locally. Below we outline how to do that, again using the NYTimes app as an example:

Open up the app in question and tap on the three little dots in the upper right corner. Go to Settings. From here, you can turn off “Offline Reading” by tapping on Update Frequency and selecting Never (Manual). You can also turn off the Thumbnail Caching which downloads images of news stories so that they display faster if you open them.

 

There will be some people who do not want to limit their apps to work in a certain way and in some cases – like with games or video streaming – there’s no technical way to reduce the amount of battery consumption or mobile data usage. Which is fine – this is all about user choice. If you do choose to take action however, these general recommendations should help Android device users reduce the overall resource consumption so they can enjoy using their apps without limitation.
 

Turn down the brightness

These days, virtually all Android smartphones or tablets come with super high-resolution displays that are also extremely bright. While that may be great for browsing the web, sharing photos or playing games, these displays harm your battery life. Did you know for example that on some smaller tablets with high-resolution displays, a display set to full brightness is responsible for 80 percent of the entire power consumption!

If you’re not in bright sunlight, we would therefore recommend turning the brightness levels down to 50-70 percent.

 

Disable Connectivity

Your Android device is full of features that impact battery life. It is important to make sure they’re off when they’re not being used:

  • Wi-Fi: Nowhere near a wireless connection? Then turn off your Wi-Fi. Otherwise the built-in Wi-Fi receiver will constantly try to scan for networks – which can increase battery usage by more than 20 percent.
  • Bluetooth: Not using a Bluetooth headset or connecting your Android device to your car? Then this setting should also be turned off, otherwise it will continually scan for compatible Bluetooth devices, using up battery as it does so.
  • GPS: Your mobile GPS is probably one of the biggest power suckers there is. The built-in GPS antennas are really power-hungry, and if your GPS is turned on they continue to draw power even if you’re not actively using them – mainly thanks to the alarming number of apps that regularly use the GPS feature such as [Google Maps, Facebook or Twitter]…So if you’re at home or just don’t need to use any GPS, turn it off.

You’ll find the settings for all three features in your swipe down menu or under Settings. Go to “Wireless” (or “Wireless and networks”) and switch off the relevant feature when not in use. Note: GPS can sometimes be referred to as “Location-based services”.

 

Remove performance-sapping apps

Your Android device is much like your PC: the more apps you install on it, the slower it will get and the sooner it’ll run out of juice. It won’t happen with one app nor probably with five, but once you’ve installed a dozen – or hundreds – of apps, you’ll notice a significant slowdown. That’s because many apps run features even when you’re not using them. So how can you be selective about which apps you do and don’t want on your phone? There are tools that help you identify the worst offenders for performance and battery life.

Ours is the free AVG Cleaner 2.0 app. Here’s how it works as an example:

  1. Firstly, install the free app from the Google Play Store or the Amazon Kindle store and launch it.
    Next, go to the “App Uninstaller” page. This will list all your currently running apps.
  2. If you tap on the little blue arrow in the top right, you can then sort the list by:
    • App Usage: Shows the apps you haven’t used in a long time.
    • Battery Usage: This helps you identify the most power-consuming apps on your device.
      Data Usage: If you’re on a monthly data plan, every Megabyte counts. If you sort the apps by “Data Usage”, you’ll quickly find the top apps that are sucking up your plan.
    • Storage Usage: Running out of disk space? Then it’s time to look at the largest apps on your phone.

 

To uninstall an app, tap on it and hit “Uninstall”. You can even tap and select multiple apps so you can get rid of a batch at a time.

I hope these tips have been helpful to you and that they help you bring new life to your Android device!

AVG

AVG Study Reveals Top 10 Apps That Ruin Your Smartphone’s Mojo

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In AVG’s latest “App Performance Report” for Q4, we’re looking again at the anonymous data from over one million AVG users, compare it to our first report, and reveal what apps are the most resource-hungry on their phones.

When looking at one million of our users, we found many interesting trends that might just surprise you:

 

Spotify is now the No 2 resource consuming app overall:

Out of our total user base, 638,716 users had the music streaming service Spotify installed: what they perhaps didn’t know is that Spotify is now the second most resource-consuming app in the store (up from rank 5 in Q3).

Spotify

If you’re low on battery, space or data, keep that streaming to a minimum!

 

The changing gaming landscape

In our previous report, uber-popular FarmVille and Puzzle & Dragons topped the charts for the most resource-hungry games for Android. However, they were nowhere to be found in our Q4 roundup. A closer look shows Puzzle & Dragons and FarmVille suffered from a 50% and 43% decline respectively in installed user base in Q4 when compared to the beginning of the year (Q1/Q2).

New games such as Boom Beach and Deer Hunter 2014, however, appeared out of nowhere and secured the top spots in both usage and resource usage (not surprisingly, they’re games after all!).

Farmville

Deer Hunter 2014

[SUBLINE] Massive decline for Farmville and a rise of Deer Hunter 2014.

 

Samsung’s New Updates

After the rollout of Android 4.4.2 (October 2014), we noticed a new entry in our top battery drainers that run immediately at start up. Samsung’s Security Policy Update service, officially named Samsung KNOX™, automatically checks for security updates and downloads these automatically. While Knox is a great addition to having a full-featured antivirus product installed, a number of users and even journalists have publicly complained about not just the amount of notifications shown but also a 30-40% drop in battery life.

As mentioned in this ZDNet article, this feature cannot be turned off as mentioned by the Samsung Technical Support: “To ensure that your device always has the latest security to protect you and your data, Samsung will occasionally send security updates to the device as needed. I’m sorry to inform you that there is no option to disable these updates”.

Policy Update

Notifications

 

While we can’t stress enough that security on mobile device is critical, handset makers need to ensure their product does not reduce battery life or impact overall performance drastically.

 

Self(ie) awareness

Selfie

Taking selfies was “the” cool thing to do in 2014: selfie sticks, selfie apps, selfie phones all flooded the market. Unfortunately, some of these apps can be quite draining on a device’s battery. A new app called Candy Camera – Selfie Selfies crept up to number 7 in the top battery hungry apps that run in the background. We suggest avoid apps like these as they only should drain battery when you’re actively running them!

 

Maps & Navigation

Did we spend more time navigating and looking at maps? With more time off over the festive period, both Waze (Social GPS Maps & Traffic) and also Google Maps climbed into the Top Usage Chart:

Google Maps

 

Less gaming, more talking

Another seasonal effect: compared to Q2 and Q3 of 2014, we spend much more time on social networks and communicating through messenger apps instead of gaming. While we still spend most 49% of our time gaming on our Android devices compared to 62% in the previous quarter, social and communication apps rose to 11% and 10.3% of our total usage (compared to 6% and 3% respectively before)

 

Again, find a full list and all the data in our app report here. 

So what are you supposed to do if you’ve got one or even many of our resource drainers installed? Find out in our top tips in the next blog!

AVG

Games, Music and Shopping Apps Hit Smartphones Hardest

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AMSTERDAM and SAN FRANCISCO – February 24, 2015 – Music lovers, smartphone shoppers and mobile gamers around the world could find their favorite apps are the ones eating up most of their battery life, data plan and phone storage. The results of the latest app performance research from AVG Technologies, N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company™ for 197 million active users, rank the popular music streaming service Spotify, new games like Deer Hunter 2014, and even the Amazon shopping app as among the most resource hungry apps globally.

The quarterly AVG Android App Performance Report analyzes aggregated, anonymous data from over one million AVG Android app users to discover the top performance-affecting apps worldwide. Installed on over 600,000 devices across AVG’s user base, popular Spotify has moved up two places from where AVG had ranked it in Q3 to take second position behind the social networking app from Facebook, whose constant background notification checks still have the greatest impact on overall Android device performance, consistent with last quarter’s findings.

There were also four major new trends among AVG users, as identified in the latest report:

  • Game On: demonstrating the ever-changing gaming landscape, last quarter’s gaming chart toppers, FarmVille and Puzzle & Dragons, showed major declines in their installed user base, contributing to the reason they dropped out of the AVG Q4 performance rankings. They are replaced by new entrants, Boom Beach for overall impact and Deer Hunter 2014 for storage consumption.
  • Seasonal Shopping Fever: over the holiday shopping and sales period, the official Amazon for Android app entered the charts this quarter, ranked number five in the top 10 list of most all-round resource-consuming apps.
  • Home Cinema Gets Smart: previously listed in the top three battery draining apps, Netflix this quarter no longer appears in the tables at all following a November update that has resulted in significantly less battery drain. Good news for film fans!
  • Helping Hands that Hinder: tools like Clean Master or background apps like Samsung’s Security Policies designed to help keep smartphones secure and smooth, actually rank among the highest drainers of battery, storage and data plan.

“In this quarter’s app report we saw some expected seasonal changes in the app landscape, such as uplift in usage of social, purchasing and GPS-based location apps,” said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. “What surprised us, however, was that some of those tools and security updates aimed at improving your phone experience, were in fact impacting it quite heavily. This is not something most people would expect so we hope our report will encourage people to understand how to manage their apps to prevent them impacting negatively on their favorite mobile past-times.”

The full report, which breaks down the performance impact further according to battery drain, storage consumption and data traffic, can be downloaded from AVG Now.

Overall Performance Impact Rank App Name Category Developer
1 Facebook Social Facebook
2 Spotify Music & Audio Spotify Ltd.
3 Instagram Social Instagram
4 Path Social Path Inc.
5 Amazon Shopping Retail Amazon

 

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About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG is the online security company providing leading software and services to secure devices, data and people. Over 197 million active users, as of December 31, 2014, use AVG´s products and services. AVG’s Consumer portfolio includes internet security, performance optimization, and personal privacy and identity protection for mobile devices and desktops. The AVG Business portfolio – delivered by managed service providers, VARs and resellers – offers IT administration, control and reporting, integrated security, and mobile device management that simplify and protect businesses.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

www.avg.com

 

Yuval Ben-Itzhak

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO, AVG Technologies

 

Contacts:

US

Katie Han

Waggener Edstrom for AVG

[email protected]

+ 1 (212) 551 4807

 

UK

Samantha Woodman

Waggener Edstrom for AVG

[email protected]

+ 44 (0)20 7632 3840

AVG

Five permissions to check when installing Android apps

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Apps are what make our smartphones truly useful. They help us stay in touch with family and friends, guide us, educate us and sometimes simply entertain us. With the average person having nearly 30 apps on their device, it’s clear that we’re no strangers to downloading and installing apps.

However a word of caution. You should always check the permissions that an app requests while installing.

In this video I have outlined five permissions that you should be aware of and give careful consideration when granting it to an app.

 

Five permissions to check when installing Android apps

1. Access to Internet: be careful that the permission being asked for is appropriate to the app

2. Access to phone and call information: apps will be able to view your call history, send text messages and incur additional costs without you knowing.

3. GPS & precise location: does the app really need your precise location or even access to your GPS?

4.Access to photos/media/files: ensure you only give access to trustworthy apps, with this permissions they have the ability to access a lot of data on your phone.

5. Camera & Microphone access: Apps can access them at anytime and take photos or record audio without you knowing. Make sure you provide access to apps you trust.

If you’re unsure about why the app is asking for you to provide a particular permissions, you can always contact the developer and ask them to clarify.