Samsung has extended its contract with cybersecurity company McAfee “to protect consumers’ personal data and information from online threats”.
The move means a continuation of the partnership that is nearly a decade old that will see current and upcoming Samsung smartphones and personal computers ship with McAfee antivirus apps pre-installed.
“Through this partnership, Samsung smartphones, including the new Galaxy S23 Ultra, Galaxy S23+ and Galaxy S23, as well as the Galaxy Book3 series, now come pre-installed with antivirus protection powered by McAfee. In addition to smartphones, the partnership expands to better protect Samsung tablets and PCs,” the two companies say in a statement.
Other device makers have also, in recent years, teamed up with various cybersecurity companies to offer similar solutions.
While the move makes sense as per the company’s point of view and, especially in the PC market, for the average Android smartphone and tablet user, their devices are well secured thanks to Google Play Protect, the built-in malware protection for Android that continuously scans installed apps and data for any threats. According to Google, it scans and verifies over 100 billion apps every day.
Google Play Protect comprises the app and data scanning feature, Find My Device which helps users locate their devices and Chrome’s safe browsing feature which you may have come across when trying to browse an unsafe page on your device.