Your Phone May Not Need Antivirus Software

In recent months Antivirus software has failed to identify and contain some huge malware attacks. This has caused it to take a beating in the media.

Antivirus Not Necessary on Smartphones?

In fact, it may not be necessary. Many people do a good deal of their computing via smartphone now-a-days. People check their email, social media, and surf the web all on their smartphones. On a normal PC they must depend on antivirus software to safeguard them against malware when doing these tasks. However, antivirus software is designed for PCs not smartphones. If antivirus developers don’t build something truly compatible with smartphones they are passing up on a profitable market.

Smartphones vs. PCs

Smartphones are very different from traditional laptops and PCs. For example, each app on a smartphone is essentially a separate system, with its own working environment. The apps on smartphones do not interact and cannot access each other. This is a huge advantage where security is concerned; as Malware cannot strike all of the systems at once, this makes antivirus software practically unnecessary.

Another reason the separation of apps makes antivirus software less useful on smartphones is that current software cannot scan every single app. Because of this, current antivirus software does little to fight the malware that can attack smartphones.

Smartphone Antivirus Programs

Although there are many reasons why current antivirus software is not very effective for smartphones, it doesn’t stop companies from offering it. One example of this is VirusBarrier. This program can be bought in Apple’s App Store. The funny thing about this is that it can’t actually scan anything on a smartphone. Instead users must send email attachments to VirusBarrier from inside their mail program for it to work. So, you can see, that there is hardly any reason for consumers to spend their money on antivirus software for their smartphones. Companies must come out with more advanced software that can scan all of the smartphone systems for antivirus software to be relevant.

>