Trustd Review: Quick Expert Summary
Trustd is a good but basic antivirus for Android and iOS. It comes with a manual app scanner (Android only), a real-time app scanner (Android only), a link checker, a network activity log, and an update checker. There’s also a premium version that adds web protection.
The manual app scanner for Android performs well, efficiently identifying malicious apps and .APK files. However, it can’t scan for most downloadable threats, which is pretty bad if you consider malicious apps aren’t the only form of malware in 2024.
I particularly like Trustd’s Wi-Fi protection. It alerts iPhone and Android users to malicious Wi-Fi networks. If you’re on Android, it even lets you see when a process connects to or disconnects from your network. It’s not as good as a firewall, but if you monitor it closely, you can easily identify threats. Trustd also alerts you when your phone’s operating system is out of date and vulnerable to cyberattacks.
All that said, Trustd isn’t perfect. If you use the free version, the web protection feature is laughably inconvenient. It’s okay at alerting you to malicious sites, but you have to manually paste every URL you visit into the app.
Overall though, I’d recommend giving Trustd a shot. Since it’s free, you won’t have to worry about buyer’s remorse. If it doesn’t work for you, there are great premium alternatives like Norton and TotalAV, both of which automatically warn you about dangerous sites (and a whole lot more).
🏅Overall Rank | #37 out of 71 antiviruses |
🔥 Firewall | ❌ |
🌐 VPN | ❌ |
🎁 Free Plan | ✅ |
💵 Pricing | $1.99 / month |
💰 Money-Back Guarantee | App store dependent |
💻 Operating Systems | Android, iOS |
Trustd Full Review — Basic Security Features + Extras (Good at Blocking Malicious Android Apps)
Trustd is a free antivirus app for Android and iOS, though there’s an optional upgrade for added web protection. It may not be the most feature-rich antivirus on the market, but it works well.
Trustd blocked several malicious apps that I tried to download onto my Android — including ones that made it past Google Play Protect. It also provides great Wi-Fi protections, but it’s not very good at finding threats that aren’t malicious apps. Even more frustrating, the free version’s web protection is little more than a manual URL checker (you need to upgrade for automatic protection when you try to visit a dangerous website).
Trustd Plans & Pricing — Free Android & iOS App (With Premium Web Protection Available)
Trustd is a free app that you can install on either Android or iOS devices, but there are differences in features between both platforms. There’s also a paid upgrade for $1.99 / month that includes extra web protection features but nothing else.
The Android app has more security features, namely the manual and real-time app scanners. Unfortunately, the iOS counterpart is missing both of these, but that isn’t so bad since no iOS antivirus suite comes with a malware scanner. That said, there are better iOS antiviruses on the market.
There’s also a separate plan geared toward businesses seeking to protect and monitor their employee’s phones.
While Trustd is far from the most feature-rich mobile antivirus that I’ve tested, all of its core features are free. You can install it and make sure it works for you without any commitment.
Trustd | Trustd Plus | |
Platforms | Android, iOS | Android, iOS |
Price | Free | $1.99 / month |
Number of device licenses | 1 | 1 |
Malware scanning & removal | ✅
(Android only) |
✅
(Android only) |
Real-time protection | ✅
(Android only) |
✅
(Android only) |
Spyware protection | ✅
(Android only) |
✅
(Android only) |
Web protections | ✅
(Manual URL checker) |
✅ (Real-time web protection) |
Firewall | ❌ | ❌ |
Wi-Fi protection | ✅ | ✅ |
Password manager | ❌ | ❌ |
Device Alerts | ✅ | ✅ |
Trustd Security Features — Helpful Android-Only App Scanner + Good Wi-Fi Protection Tools
Trustd comes with a small but mostly reliable set of security features. It lacks many of the advanced features you’d expect in a premium antivirus, like a firewall and a VPN, but it does come with good Wi-Fi protection, a manual app scanner, and a real-time app scanner for Android.
The Android-only manual app scanner did well in my tests, catching a few malicious apps I’d downloaded onto my phone. After a scan, it gives each of your apps one of 3 risk levels (clean, suspicious, and malicious). Tapping on any app will show what permissions it has, with dangerous permissions highlighted at the top. It also provides links that let you uninstall an app or change its permissions.
However, Unlike Norton and Bitdefender, Trustd only scans apps and .APK files, meaning other threats can get through. It lacks a scanner on iOS, too, but this isn’t a drawback. No iOS antivirus suite comes with an app scanner because each iOS app runs in an individual sandbox that can’t be scanned.
The real-time app scanner is okay, but it doesn’t work on every type of threat. It scans every app that you download from the Play Store and it also checks .APK files. If it detects anything suspicious, it will block it. This covers most of the downloadable dangers affecting Android, but there are other threats that it doesn’t cover — like .ZIP malware and exploit attacks.
Trustd offers some of my favorite mobile Wi-Fi protection tools on the market. The iOS and Android versions both come with the ability to detect unsecured Wi-Fi networks before you connect. The Android version also comes with an event manager that provides a record showing every time an app or process accesses the internet. McAfee has a similar feature (and extras like a VPN), but Trustd works fine, too.
The event log on Android also shows you a history of apps that have requested access to the internet and your camera. It also provides a log of malicious links that Trustd has detected, a rundown of apps you’ve installed, and more. To view more about any given event, just tap on it. It will tell you what Trustd detected. It isn’t super detailed, but it’s not too bad. You’ll also get a notification whenever your phone’s camera or microphone is turned on, alerting you if you’re being spied on.
The web protection isn’t great. The free version is little more than a URL checker that lets you copy/paste links into the app to learn if they’re dangerous or not. After checking a link, you’ll see a button that redirects you back to the site you’ve scanned — even if it thinks the site is dangerous. Putting aside the inconvenience of having to paste every URL into the app, it only detected about 60% of phishing sites in my tests and it doesn’t indicate the extent of potential threats. It either says a site is safe or that it “looks suspicious”. The free version doesn’t even let you whitelist sites, either. Norton’s mobile app provides more details and is better at identifying threats.
If you upgrade to Trustd Plus, websites will be scanned in real time, eliminating the need to manually check them. Still, it wasn’t able to block as many dangerous sites as top antiviruses like Norton or TotalAV.
Trustd also sends you alerts if it detects any out-of-date security features on your phone and helps you install the latest patch. It’s not the most impressive feature by any means, but it did show me what I needed to do to get my old phone fully updated.
Trustd Ease of Use & Setup — Easy Setup (With a Few Taps + No Account Needed)
Trustd is an extremely easy-to-use mobile antivirus. My favorite part is the setup process. I didn’t need to make an account or provide any personal information to start using Trustd. All I had to do was install the app and follow the setup prompts to get started.
After installation, I never experienced any technical glitches or bugs, which is more than I can say for many premium antiviruses.
Navigating through the interface is pretty simple. From the homepage, you can run a scan and view basic event logs. Tapping one of the icons at the bottom brings up a menu expanding on that feature (for example, clicking on the Web icon opens up a menu with your web protection features.
Overall, Trustd is very easy to use. The one exception is that using it to check for dangerous sites is exceedingly tedious. However, I never struggled to access any of its features, and it didn’t cause any noticeable problems or slowdown on my device.
Trustd Customer Support — Informative Email Support (But Not Much Else)
Trustd’s support center isn’t the best. There’s email support and a support page with several FAQ sections, but most of these are dedicated to the business plan and aren’t very helpful to the average user. It lacks live chat, phone support, or a community forum. It’s far from the most robust support center on the market.
If you have a question, your best bet is email support. I asked a few questions that sprung up during my tests and received informative responses within 24 hours of sending the email.
Like I said, it’s not a very dynamic support center, but it’s decent considering the product is mostly free. I wouldn’t mind seeing some form of live chat support to help it compete a little better with top antiviruses like Norton, but I’ve seen worse support centers for paid products.
Is Trustd Worth It?
Honestly, I think Trustd is worth it. It’s not the most comprehensive security suite on Android or iOS, and it has a few drawbacks that stop it from being one of my favorite antiviruses, but it’s not all that bad.
To start, the malware scanner works pretty well, catching most of the malicious apps I downloaded on my Android. The Wi-Fi protection is incredibly easy to use and informative, too. From one menu it shows you every change in your Wi-Fi network, including new connections, disconnections, and intrusions, which is great.
However, the web protection is frustrating. It’s clunky if you don’t have the premium plan ,and even if you do subscribe, it doesn’t catch every threat.
That said, the main reason I’d argue Trustd is worth it is that it’s free. The only feature that’s locked behind a paywall is the enhanced web protection, which gives you real-time web protection for visiting websites on your phone browser. I love the fact that you don’t even need to create an account to get started. You can try it without any commitments and get rid of the app if you end up going with a better premium antivirus.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Trustd free?
The main functions of Trustd are 100% free. You can download and use the app without providing any personal information whatsoever. The only premium feature is Safe Browsing, which adds the ability to whitelist and blacklist websites and makes it so that websites you visit are automatically scanned for threats.
That said, Trustd lacks a lot of the powerful security features that you’d get with premium antivirus suites like Norton (like a VPN, a spam filter, and dark web monitoring), and there’s no way to upgrade your Trustd account to obtain them.
Does Trustd have the same features on Android and iOS?
No, Trustd has different features for its Android and iOS offerings. Specifically, the iOS version is missing real-time protection and the app scanner. To be fair, most iOS antiviruses lack an app scanner due to Apple’s app ecosystem and restrictions, but it’s still far from the best offering for Apple customers (I’d recommend checking out one of these antiviruses for more comprehensive iOS protection).
Is Trustd available on Windows?
No, Trustd is not available on Windows and can only be installed on an Android or iOS phone. If you’re looking for a Windows antivirus, I’d highly recommend checking out one of our top-rated antiviruses instead.