There seems to be a lot of anti-virus apps for Android. On a desktop or server an anti-virus must run with super-user privileges, however I am pretty sure these mobile anti-viruses are running as an unprivileged user. That being said, real anti-virus companies like AVG and McAfee have released anti-virus apps for Android.
How do these anti-virus apps work? Are they effective?
The basic tasks of an antivirus do not require that much of super-user accesses; to see whether a given executable file seems to contain a known virus, then read access to that file is sufficient. This can be done from userland, without modifying the kernel or even obtain root privileges; the system of configurable permissions for apps can handle that. Similarly, interception of network traffic can be done with the relevant permission.
What would require fiddling with the kernel would be launching the antivirus on a file when that file is executed. But Android has a stricter security model than desktop operating systems; application code cannot do everything it wishes, e.g. inspecting the RAM used by other applications. This constraints what an antivirus can do, but also what virus can do. If malware has already gone beyond this system-enforced layer, then things are much worse than what antivirus can fix.
On a rooted device, of course, these things change a lot. A rooted device is much similar to, say, a PC. In that case a PC running a kind of Linux, where both virus and antivirus are scarce.
Apparently, Google is (or was) very much against the mere idea of an antivirus on Android. The permissions model is such that, at least on the paper, malware filtering is better done on the app repository (Google Play); at least so it is claimed. Antivirus software is useful only as long as it detects malware which would otherwise be disruptive for your device or your data, but such disruption would be considered as a bug on either the OS or the app repository, and promptly fixed by Google. Thus, an antivirus is efficient only insofar as the antivirus vendor and its update policy are more reactive than Google themselves.
The anti-virus apps you get from GooglePlay, is most likely made to protect against apps from outside the GooglePlay store (also know as APK packages). We're now writing 2014, and it's starting to get really ugly on the Android platform. There's COUNTLESS "APK" installer packages that just downloads automatically to your phone/tablet if you enter the wrong website. These "APK" packages are like apps from GooglePlay, EXCEPT they're not necessarily safe to use. A common one is "Mobogenie" (I don't trust that one).
A good way to prevent the potentially harmful apps to get onto your device, is to use a browser like Google Chrome for Android (from GooglePlay). It asks you weither you want to stop, or continue file downloads, that occur automatically.
If that's not enough for you, then I suppose you could try out an Antivirus app from GooglePlay.
