Antivirus software has taken a beating recently in the news, mostly as it has struggled to find and contain some of the bigger malware attacks in recent months.
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 standard PC they must depend upon antivirus software to safeguard them against malware when doing these tasks. However, antivirus software is developed for PCs not smartphones. If antivirus developers don’t build something truly compatible with smartphones they are passing up on a lucrative market.
Smartphones vs. PCs
Smartphones are very different from traditional laptops and PCs. As an example, each app on a smartphone is basically an independent system, with its own working environment. The apps on smartphones do not interact and can’t access each other. This is a huge advantage where security is involved; as Malware cannot strike all of the systems at once, this makes antivirus software almost unnecessary.
Another reason the separation of apps makes antivirus software less useful on smartphones is that current software cannot scan each and every app. For this reason, current antivirus software does little to combat the malware that can attack smartphones.
Smartphone Antivirus Programs
We have touched on a couple factors why the antivirus software that is currently on the market is not very efficient for smartphones. But that doesn’t stop companies from selling it. VirusBarrier is a good example of this. It can be obtained through Apple’s App Store, but it can’t actually scan anything on a smartphone. Users have to send any attachments or documents they need scanned for viruses through VirusBarrier before downloading it using their email client. This is often both irritating and almost useless for consumers. Until companies start developing more complex antivirus software that is able to actually scan apps on smartphones, there is little reason to buy antivirus software for your smartphone.