Antivirus software has gotten a whole lot of bad press lately. This is predominantly because of the fact that antivirus software has recently neglected to recognize and contain large malware attacks. But is antivirus software necessary for smartphones?
Antivirus Not Necessary on Smartphones?
Then there’s the realization that antivirus software isn’t much use to people who do a lot of their computing on smartphones. This is important, since many consumers today read email messages, surf the Web and get social media through their smartphones. If antivirus software isn’t actually helping these folks, then the antivirus industry is missing out on a load of prospects.
Smartphones vs. PCs
Smartphones operate differently from PCs. The apps on smartphones operate on their own working environment, within their own systems and do not interact. The apps do not interact. This makes smartphones more secure, as malware can’t attack all of the systems at the same time. This inherently makes antivirus software almost needless.
One other reason antivirus software is not useful for smartphones is that current antivirus software can’t scan these separate systems. For this reason present antivirus software does little to combat any malware on smartphones.
Smartphone Antivirus Programs
That hasn’t stopped companies from offering antivirus apps for smartphones. For instance VirusBarrier, which is an antivirus program that smartphone users can find in Apple’s App Store. The problem is that the program doesn’t scan anything on a smartphone since it can’t. Consumers, then, who wish to scan email attachments have to send it to VirusBarrier from within their mail program. This is not only irritating, it’s also fairly useless. Consumers should consider this good news. There really is no reason for them to waste their funds on antivirus software for their smartphones.