Microsoft Defender and for Android devices

Microsoft today released a preview version of its antivirus software for Android devices. The company revealed that Windows Defender will be released for iOS and Android in early 2020, but did not give more details on what to expect.

Of course since Defender will not run on Windows, it was named Microsoft Defender.

Public preview for Android includes phishing protection and will go one step further than Google's built-in malware protection to offer signature malware detection.

"Scans will immediately detect malware and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs)." he says Kanishka Srivastava, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft.

"If a secure application is downloaded, the end user will see a small notification informing them that the application is clean."

Microsoft software as mentioned above will have anti-phishing, so that unsafe websites sent via SMS, WhatsApp, email or other applications are immediately blocked. Microsoft will also use Defender SmartScreen technology to block unsafe network connections that may attempt to download malicious applications without the knowledge of the end user.

Microsoft also plans to release an antivirus application for iOS devices, but we do not know when. By default, all Apple iOS apps run in the sandbox and prevent most users from downloading apps that are not in the App Store.