Is antivirus for android really needed?

It is a mind bending fact that even the playstore is brimming with malware applications right now. In fact, few days back, a malware by the name of DroidDream has popped up which is said to have compromised personal data of users. It takes over the device and sends information back to its hacker putting your data at risk. So if you are an android user and paranoid about security of your phone, it is now time to get an antivirus app.

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We installed and tested many antivirus applications and found the AVG antivirus to be most effective. This antivirus application doubles as antimalware and runs in the background at all times. Like a watchdog, it keeps an eye on the data that is downloaded on your phone. It ensures that no malware or virus is able to infect your phone and steal personal PIM and other information. It is a free mobile antivirusapplication and anyone can install it for free from the playstore.

After installing AVG antivirus on your phone, you should do a scan of your phone. You can tell it to do scan of both internal as well as external storage. This is also recommended as it will help find any malware or virus that could be there on your phone already.

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AVG antivirus can run in the background without making the phone down. It monitors your web browsing sessions and ensures no malware website is able to install dangerous application or game on your phone. If it finds something dangerous, it immediately alerts and notifies you.

AVG antivirus is more than just an antivirus application. It keeps track of your mobile data usage and alerts you if you are going overboard. It also optimizes internal storage space. It does this by clearing the cache, cookies and unneeded site data that it downloads over the internet.

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It comes with several other useful features such as device lock feature which can automatically lock your android phone or tablet if the SIM card is replaced. So even if the thief gets hold of your phone, you can be rest assured that the data and PIM information stored on it is safe.

Verdict – AVG Antivirus is the best antivirus application for android devices and must have for all users.

How to enhance android security?

Android is an open source application but is plagued with myriad security holes. Any hacker can get into your phone’s system by exploiting the vulnerabilities. They do this by injecting a malware from a website or another application. To project your phone from such attacks, you will need an antivirus and antimalware application. The best one out there is the AVG antivirus which is available for both android phones and tablets.

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Continue reading “How to enhance android security?”

How to convert ZCash to Currency: Zcash to USD EUR INR

If you are recently started mining Zcash, you might be confused on how to convert Zcash to currency (eg, USD, EUR, INR etc) that you can use in daily life. We have made a small tutorial on how to do. First, let us assume you have bought some Zcash using fiat currency or you have set up a mining rig. For mining Zcash, Nvidia graphics cards work the best and even the people with the Nvidia Pascal based graphics cards can mine Zcash pretty easily. Just make sure that the room is not too hot. For instance, MSI Trident 3 Arctic Edition comes with Nvidia 1070 graphics card which is great for mining Zcash. The specs of MSI Trident 3 are bit overkill for sure in terms of specifications but if you already have one, you can underclock CPU and make some money.

convert ZCash to Currency

Anyway, set up a wallet for Zcash. Jaxx.io is one Zcash wallet example. Then start mining Zcash using Nvidia or AMD and as said earlier going with Nvidia is suggested. The Zcash pool will be sending money to your wallet once the threshold crosses. I have set mine at 0.2 ZEC so that I always have some money to play around with.

Now make an account on localbitcoins.com and select your country. Then visit changelly.com and get ZEC Zcash converted to BTC and then send it to your localbitcoins’s bitcoin wallet. You will find plenty of options where you will find people who can give you money via paypal, cash or to your bank.

This might be complicated at the beginning, but those of us that are used to trading in Forex with different currencies is the most common thing. Also, each country indeed have different solutions.

Download Samsung galaxy J1 ACE TWRP custom recovery

If you are looking to install custom firmwares on your Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace, you will have to install a custom recovery – something like TWRP or CWM. This particular one is for the SM-J110H variant of Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace and after its installation, you will have to install all J1 Ace specific hacks and even root it with ease.

Samsung galaxy J1 ACE TWRP

Here are the instructions on how to install TWRP custom recovery on the Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace SM-J110H variant.

1. Download and install Odin on your PC.
2. Once you have Odin installed, download the proper .tar file for your device from the download link above.
3. Power off your device. Turn on your device using the proper key combo to get into download mode and attach the device to your computer via a USB cable
4. Use the PDA tab or button to browse to and select the tar file that you downloaded and flash the device.

Keep in mind that modern Samsung devices come with a key combo in order to prevent users from entering into recovery. For that, you will have to type in fastboot reboot into ADB and then hold the key combo and boot to TWRP. Once TWRP is booted, TWRP will patch the stock ROM to prevent the stock ROM from replacing TWRP. If you don’t follow this step, you will have to repeat the install.

Which is best antivirus software for Samsung phones?

Google Android is an open source operating system. Being overly open, it is at risk of getting infected from malware and harmful applications. That is you need decent antivirus software on your Samsung phone. There are many free and paid antivirus applications available for them. While the idea of installing antivirus software might seem like an overkill, it is extremely important to protect yourself from dangerous malware. We put many antivirus applications to paces and found AVG antivirus best in terms of performance and features.

avg antivirus

Compatible with both Samsung and other android phones, the AVG antivirus is the number 1 free antivirus for android mobile. It scans applications and games in real time without having any effect on the overall performance. This means that your phone would not bog down with the AVG antivirus application running in the background. It even kills the tasks that it feel would slow down your phone. So, the device keeps running fast at all times.

Samsung Galaxy Note phones are notorious for slowing down after sometime. AVG keeps the entire system and memory optimized to prevent any such slowdowns.

The AVG anti virus app for android makes sure that there are no unsecure settings on your Samsung Galaxy Note. If it founds any, it alerts you and guides you on how to fix them. At the same time, it protects your phone getting infected from malicious applications, malware and spyware.

avg antivirus android phone

Some other nifty features include encrypted Vault and Wi-Fi feature. In Vault, you can store your most private photos in a way that they are not seen by the smartphone’s Gallery or Photos applications. This way, a stranger or friend cannot gain access to the private photos. The vault is protected by password which is only known by you.

avg antivirus android 

Wi-Fi feature lets you scan the 802.11g/b/n wireless networks around you and gives alerts if there are encryption issues. This way, you only connect to the most secure network. It also sends out alerts to its users when it feels that weak passwords are being used.

Verdict – AVG Antivirus for android phones and tablets is a must have application. Android platform is brimming with malware and such application tightens the security and guards it against malicious apps, viruses, malware and spyware.

AICP ROM for the N7100 Galaxy Note 2

If you heart vanilla software, then you will love the AICP ROM for the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 N7100. It is based on lollipop firmware which was actually never released for this Samsung Galaxy Note. Samsung halted all development after releasing official android 4.4.2 for N7100. The developer ported it from another device and made it work with the Note 2 drivers. To flash this AICP ROM, you will need Note 2 TWRP custom recovery and it is also strongly recommended that you fully wipe your device before doing a flash and avoid restoring system applications and data with something like Titanium backup for android phones as that can work against stability for your phone.

AICP ROM for the N7100 Galaxy Note 2

Here are the flashing instructions for AICP ROM for the N7100. First download the ROM from here and put it in microSD. Then boot into N7100’s custom recovery and flash the firmware from there. Gapps are absent and must be installed before boot. So flash them after installing ROM.

For flashing the ROM, both TWRP and CWM work. Developer says that until android lollipop, he used to make ROMs that were AOKP but were later changed since folks at AOKP halted all development. He says that if the developers behind make a comeback, he will get back to AOKP but for now, the base has been changed to cyanogenmod.

Download Android 7 AOSP ROM for Galaxy Note 2 N7100

We have been informed about the Android 7 Nougat ROM for the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 N7100 android phone. This ROM is based on AOSP which means there is no Samsung TouchWiz user interface. This is great for those who are looking for vanilla experience on their android phone. Substratum is fully compatible.

Download Android 7 AOSP ROM for Galaxy Note 2 N7100

Keep in mind that the first boot will take some time and it might even loop for few times. Just make sure not to use any custom kernel with this Android 7 Nougat ROM.

Keep in mind that there is no default music player onboard so use something like blackplayer, folder player or musixmatch.

Instructions for flashing:
– Download ROM and GApps.
– Copy ROM and GApps to internal storage.
– Wipe /data, /system and /cache.
– Flash ROM and GApps (And any mods you use)
– Enjoy :P

Instructions for update:
Download ROM and GApps.
– Copy ROM and GApps to internal storage.
– Flash ROM and GApps

Everything is working out of box and there are no known bugs. This makes this Android 7 Nougat ROM excellent for everyday use. This is the best Nougat ROM.

Feature list.

Based On AOSP 7.1.1_r25:
Blur customizations
LED customizations
Substratum theme engine (OMS7)
Latest OMS Rootless Support with Float UI/Theme Interfacer

Navigation bar:
Dynamic navbar color
Smartbar customizations
Fling & Pulse

Hardware keys:
Volume keys control media volume
Volume button wake
Music control
Volume button swap
Volume key cursor control
Power + volume up behavoir
Volume down for do not disturb
Volume up in do not disturb
Do not disturb switch
Navigation key customizations
Disable navigation buttons

Lockscreen:
Center screen Shortcuts
Longpress shortcuts
Lockscreen swipe shortcuts
Lockscreen weather
Double-tap to sleep
Lockscreen torch
Lockscreen charging info
Lockscreen Music Visualiser

Notification drawer:
Quick pulldown
Smart pulldown
Force expanded notifications
Disable brightness slider
Disable quick settings when locked
QS tile titles
Small QS Tiles Scrolling
Advanced QS Easy Toggle
QS tile row/column count
Custom header image

Status bar:
Battery styles
Custom carrier label
Clock settings
Ticker
Network traffic
Status bar icons
Double-tap to sleep
Slide brightness control
Notification count
Bluetooth battery status

Recents:
Hidden apps
Memory bar
Immersive Recents
Clear all button
Omniswitch

It is nice to see the old N7100 still being supported by XDA community.

Download Wileyfox Swift 2 Debloater to clean up android phone

Folks at Wileyfox have started rolling out android 7 to their Swift 2 users and there is a lot of bloatware onboard. This is why some people are looking for some easy way to get rid of bloatware on their phone. Some of the annoying ones including ads in launcher and forcing users to use Truedialer to dial numbers which also has ads inside. There is a nice AOSP dialer there so why use truedialer?

Download Wileyfox Swift 2 Debloater

Before proceeding, keep in mind that by install the debloater for Wileyfox Swift 2, you will not able to get new OTA so no more new software builds for your android phone. Second, you will have to disable DM-VERITY otherwise you won’t be able to boot. For that just install magisk. Make sure you are running latest android Wileyfox swift 2 image which is android 7 nougat.

Then unlock the bootloader and install Wileyfox swift 2 TWRP custom recovery. Download debloater’s zip file from here and put it somewhere on your phone. Choose Install and locate and flash the ZIP. Reboot and enjoy.

If you are missing missed call notifications, go into Settings > Apps, then hit the gear in the top right corner and make sure you’ve a config similar to one shown in image below.

Download Wileyfox Swift 2 Debloater

Removed application list includes , AndroidPay , BasicDreams , BookmarkProvider , Google Books , Chrome , CMFileManager , Drive , Duo , Gmail , GooglePrintRecommendationService , GoogleTTS , Hangouts , Keep , Maps , Google Music , News and Weather , PhotoTable , talkback , Google Videos WFChromeCustomization , Youtube , Contacts , FoxHole , Mms , SnapdragonGallery , TrueCaller , All bundled-apps from /system/vendor/bundled-app.

App additions include Google Contacts, in replacement of the half-dummy, prebundled Contacts app (which was missing link with the Dialer). , Google Dialer, in replacement of TrueCaller. , Google Messages, in replacement of Wileyfox Mms app. , AOSP’s Launcher3, in replacement of FoxHole (Wileyfox’s Launcher).

Download lineage OS for Wileyfox Swift 2

Developer behind lineage OS has released a testing ROM for the Wileyfox Swift 2. And since it is in heavy development state, make sure to backup entire device. The ROM brings numerous enhancements and improvements over the stock Wileyfox Swift 2 android phone https://apothetech.com/download-wileyfox-swift-2-recovery-image-and-fastboot-image/ .

Download lineage OS for Wileyfox Swift 2

Lineage OS for Wileyfox Swift 2 is based on AOSP project so you get vanilla android experience and you phone feels very fast. It does not even come with google services installed but you can install them yourself of course. I will be doing that too since I am too much into google services network.

Here is what is working.

Sound (Speakers and headphones), Camera, Mobile Network, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2 SIM cards, Memory card, Dialer, Sensors, Indicator (50/50)

Here is what is not working.

Fingerprint scanner (50/50), GPS, NFC

Installation instructions:

* Download the zip – find it in the development link given at the bottom of this article
* Install a compatible Recovery (TWRP recovery recommended)
* Perform a nandroid backup of your current ROM (Optional)
* Wipe data/factory reset and Flash LineageOS
* Optional: Install the Google Apps addon http://opengapps.org/
* Reboot