Help Needed with Rooting, Security, Other Questions

[Dr Denby]

Looking to get my first tablet. Android seems like it fits my budget the best.

I am concerned about 3 things that researching is just giving me a headache over so I trust this community to help.

a) Has there been a consensus yet as to whether a tablet needs internet and antivirus security? I see everything from it just slows things to a crawl to that it is a must have.

b) should it be rooted? what is rooting? how would I do it?

c) on my desktop and laptop, if i screw things up, even royally, a drive format and reinstall of the operating system sets everything straight. On a tablet, there is a "reset" but that does not wipe/format. Is there a way to do a complete reinstall of the jelly bean system? complete blank slate?

Thanks

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

a) Better safe than sorry. There are well documented exploits targeting Android.

b) IMO, no there should not be a reason for rooting. It provides total system access but a great many of the problem reports I see from users is because they were rooted and things somehow got totally messed up. If you decide to go down that road wait until you have read everything you can get your hands on about rooting first.

c) A factory reset is nearly identical to reformatting a drive and starting with a fresh Windows install. It will put the tablet back to factory fresh.

 

[Dr Denby]

Thanks, leeshor.

What protection is recommended that will not slow it down, and at same time is free to little cost?

 

[leeshor]

That's a question that doesn't have an easy answer. I would go to this site and read what they have to say and make your own decision. http://www.av-test.org/en/home/

 

[Dr Denby]

Thanks, leeshor

You have given me a lot to look thru, which is fine.

One more question: Can a virus, malware, etc do any damage to my tablet that a reset cannot undo?

I know I will lose data and such. I mean system damage.

 

[Spider]

Hi Dr Denby, welcome to the forum. Glad you decided to join us here at Android Tablets. As of now, I've not heard of anything that can damage a tablet to the point where a hard reset can't recover it. I personally used AVG for years on my PCs and tablets, but recently changed to Malwarebytes because of their very high ratings in the tests I've seen. Both are free, very good, and caused no apparent slowdown of my systems.

 

[Dr Denby]

Thanks Spider, and Leeshor of course.

It is just a good chunk of money (at least to me it is) and I want to get the most of it while making sure it is secure and lasts.

I appreciate it.

 

[leeshor]

I had been in the middle of a response similar to Spiders when the forum software updated and killed my post.

It is a lot to consider. That factory rest would put your tablet back to new as far as the operating system goes. You would be left with any OS updates that had been applied and if you allowed Google to sync your apps you may even get some of your settings just not the data.